City Of Bones
by Cheliz
Summary: What if Clary hadn't existed. What if instead of Clary it had been Pinny Black? It begins ALMOST the same but will drastically change in later chapters. I guess it's AU. This is City Of Bones, my version.
1. Chapter 1

1  
PANDEMONIUM  
"You've got to be kidding me" the bouncer said, folding his arms across his massive chest. He stared down at the boy in the red zip-up jacket and shook his shaved head. "You can't bring that thing in here."  
The fifty or so teenagers in line outside the Pandemonium Club leaned forward to eavesdrop. It was a long wait to get into the all-ages club, especially on a Sunday, and not much generally happened in line. The bouncers were fierce and would come down instantly on anyone who looked like they were going to start trouble. Fifteen-year-old Pinny Black, standing in line with her best friend, Simon, leaned forward along with everyone else, hoping for some excitement. Or, just in Pinny's case, sadistic pleasurement.  
"Aw, come on." The kid hoisted the thing up over his head. It looked like a wooden beam, pointed at one end. "It's part of my costume."  
The bouncer raised an eyebrow. "Which is what?"  
The boy grinned. He was normal-enough-looking, Pinny thought, for Pandemonium. He had electric-blue dyed hair that stuck up around his head like the tendrils of a startled octopus, but no elaborate facial tattoos or big metal bars through his ears or lips. He was quite hot. Pinny loved to dye her hair too. It was right now a whirwind of wild purple,blue and green ringlets. With a faint hint of pinkt though.  
"I'm a vampire hunter." He pushed down on the wooden thing. It bent as easily as a blade of grass bending sideways. "It's fake. Foam rubber. See?"  
The boy's wide eyes were way too bright a green, Pinny noticed: the color of antifreeze, spring grass. Colored contact lenses, probably. The bouncer shrugged, abruptly bored. "Whatever. Go on in."  
The boy slid past him, quick as an eel. Pinny liked the lilt to his shoulders, the way he tossed his hair as he went. There was a word for him that her mother would have used—insouciant.  
"You thought he was cute," said Simon, sounding resigned. "Didn't you?"  
Pinny dug her elbow into his ribs, but didn't answer. Even while she thought, hell yes bitch.  
Inside, the club was full of dry-ice smoke. Colored lights played over the dance floor, turning it into a multicolored fairyland of blues and acid greens, hot pinks and golds.  
The boy in the red jacket stroked the long razor-sharp blade in his hands, an idle smile playing over his lips. It had been so easy—a little bit of a glamour on the blade, to make it look harmless. Another glamour on his eyes, and the moment the bouncer had looked straight at him, he was in. Of course, he could probably have gotten by without all that trouble, but it was part of the fun—fooling the mundies, doing it all out in the open right in front of them, getting off on the blank looks on their sheeplike faces.  
Not that the humans didn't have their uses. The boy's green eyes scanned the dance floor, where slender limbs clad in scraps of silk and black leather appeared and disappeared inside the revolving columns of smoke as the mundies danced. Girls tossed their long hair, boys swung their leather-clad hips, and bare skin glittered with sweat. Vitality just poured off them, waves of energy that filled him with a drunken dizziness. His lip curled. They didn't know how lucky they were. They didn't know what it was like to eke out life in a dead world, where the sun hung limp in the sky like a burned cinder. Their lives burned as brightly as candle flames—and were as easy to snuff out.  
His hand tightened on the blade he carried, and he had begun to step out onto the dance floor, when a girl broke away from the mass of dancers and began walking toward him. He stared at her. She was beautiful, for a human—long hair nearly the precise color of black ink, charcoaled eyes. Floor-length white gown, the kind women used to wear when this world was younger. Lace sleeves belled out around her slim arms. Around her neck was a thick silver chain, on which hung a dark red pendant the size of a baby's fist. He only had to narrow his eyes to know that it was real—real and precious. His mouth started to water as she neared him. Vital energy pulsed from her like blood from an open wound. She smiled, passing him, beckoning with her eyes. He turned to follow her, tasting the phantom sizzle of her death on his lips.  
It was always easy. He could already feel the power of her evaporating life coursing through his veins like fire. Humans were so stupid. They had something so precious, and they barely safeguarded it at all. They threw away their lives for money, for packets of powder, for a stranger's charming smile. The girl was a pale ghost retreating through the colored smoke. She reached the wall and turned, bunching her skirt up in her hands, lifting it as she grinned at him. Under the skirt, she was wearing thigh-high boots.  
He sauntered up to her, his skin prickling with her nearness. Up close she wasn't so perfect: He could see the mascara smudged under her eyes, the sweat sticking her hair to her neck. He could smell her mortality, the sweet rot of corruption. Got you, he thought.  
A cool smile curled her lips. She moved to the side, and he could see that she was leaning against a closed door. NO ADMITTANCE—STORAGE was scrawled across it in red paint. She reached behind her for the knob, turned it, slid inside. He caught a glimpse of stacked boxes, tangled wiring. A storage room. He glanced behind him—no one was looking. So much the better if she wanted privacy.  
He slipped into the room after her, unaware that he was being followed.  
"So," Simon said, "pretty good music, eh?"  
Pinny didn't reply. He was dancing, or what passed for it—a lot of swaying back and forth with occasional lunges toward the floor as if one of them had dropped a contact lens—in a space between a group of teenage boys in metallic corsets, and a young Asian couple who were making out passionately, their colored hair extensions tangled together like vines. A boy with a lip piercing and a teddy bear backpack was handing out free tablets of herbal ecstasy, his parachute pants flapping in the breeze from the wind machine. Pinny was dancing in the way she always did. Hip swaying and body rolling. Probably looking like a stripper. She saw belly dancers and other people do it on telivision when she was little, and wanted to do that too. She had been training herself since she was nine. Her mother hadn't approved. But as if Pinny would ever listen to her mother.  
Pinny wasn't paying much attention to their immediate surroundings—her eyes were on the blue-haired boy who'd talked his way into the club. He was prowling through the crowd as if he were looking for something. There was something about the way he moved that reminded her of something …  
"I, for one," Simon went on, "am enjoying myself immensely."  
This seemed unlikely. Simon, as always, stuck out at the club like a sore thumb, in jeans and an old T-shirt that said MADE IN BROOKLYN across the front. His freshly scrubbed hair was dark brown instead of green or pink, and his glasses perched crookedly on the end of his nose. He looked less as if he were contemplating the powers of darkness and more as if he were on his way to chess club.  
"Mmm-hmm." Pinny hummed as she rolled her eyes. Simon, she thought as she sighed. She knew perfectly well that he came to Pandemonium with her only because she liked it, that he thought it was boring. She wasn't even sure why it was that she liked it—the clothes, the music, made it like a dream, someone else's life, not her boring real life at all. But she was always too shy to talk to anyone but Simon.  
The blue-haired boy was making his way off the dance floor. He looked a little lost, as if he hadn't found whom he was looking for. Pinny wondered what would happen if she went up and introduced herself, offered to show him around. Maybe he'd just stare at her. Or maybe he was shy too. Maybe he'd be grateful and pleased, and try not to show it, the way boys did—but she'd know. Maybe they would end up snogging or even further down that road—  
The blue-haired boy straightened up suddenly, snapping to attention, like a hunting dog on point. Pinny followed the line of his gaze, and saw the girl in the white dress.  
Oh, well. Pinny thought, trying not to feel like a deflated party balloon. I guess that's that. The girl was gorgeous, the kind of girl Pinny would have killed to draw—tall and ribbon-slim, with a long spill of black hair. Even at this distance Pinny could see the red pendant around her throat. It pulsed under the lights of the dance floor like a separate, disembodied heart.  
"I feel," Simon went on, "that this evening DJ Bat is doing a singularly exceptional job. Don't you agree?"  
Pinny rolled her eyes and didn't answer; Simon hated trance music. Her attention was on the girl in the white dress. Through the darkness, smoke, and artificial fog, her pale dress shone out like a beacon. No wonder the blue-haired boy was following her as if he were under a spell, too distracted to notice anything else around him—even the two dark shapes hard on his heels, weaving after him through the crowd.  
Pinny slowed her dancing and stared. She could just make out that the shapes were boys, tall and wearing black clothes. She couldn't have said how she knew that they were following the other boy, but she did. She could see it in the way they paced him, their careful watchfulness, the slinking grace of their movements. A small flower of apprehension began to open inside her chest.  
"Meanwhile," Simon added, "I wanted to tell you that lately I've been cross-dressing. Also, I'm sleeping with your mom. I thought you should know."  
She laughed hysterically. That was what she loved about Simon.  
The girl had reached the wall, and was opening a door marked NO ADMITTANCE. She beckoned the blue-haired boy after her, and they slipped through the door. It wasn't anything Pinny hadn't seen before, a couple sneaking off to the dark corners of the club to fuck their own brains out—but that made it even weirder that they were being followed.  
She raised herself up on tiptoe, trying to see over the crowd. The two guys had stopped at the door and seemed to be conferring with each other. One of them was blond, the other dark-haired. The blond one reached into his jacket and drew out something long and sharp that flashed under the strobing lights. A knife. "Simon!" Pinny shouted, and seized his arm.  
"What?" Simon looked alarmed. "I'm not really sleeping with your mom, you know. I was just trying to get your attention. Not that your mom isn't a very attractive woman, for her age."  
"Haha, go get married in June. But lover boy, do you see those guys?" She pointed wildly, almost hitting a curvy black girl who was dancing nearby. The girl shot her an evil look. "Sorry—sorry!" Pinny turned back to Simon. "Do you see those two guys over there? By that door?"  
Simon squinted, then shrugged. "I don't see anything."  
"There are two of them. They were following the guy with the blue hair—"  
"The one you thought was cute?"  
"Yes, but that's not the point. The blond one pulled a knife."  
"Are you sure?" Simon stared harder, shaking his head. "I still don't see anyone."  
"I'm sure."  
Suddenly all business, Simon squared his shoulders. "I'll get one of the security guards. You stay here." He strode away, pushing through the crowd.  
Pinny turned just in time to see the blond boy slip through the NO ADMITTANCE door, his friend right on his heels. She looked around; Simon was still trying to shove his way across the dance floor, but he wasn't making much progress. Even if she yelled now, no one would hear her, and by the time Simon got back, something terrible might already have happened. Biting hard on her lower lip, Pinny started to wriggle through the crowd.  
"What's your name?"  
She turned and smiled. What faint light there was in the storage room spilled down through high barred windows smeared with dirt. Piles of electrical cables, along with broken bits of mirrored disco balls and discarded paint cans, littered the floor.  
"Isabelle."  
"That's a nice name." He walked toward her, stepping carefully among the wires in case any of them were live. In the faint light she looked half-transparent, bleached of color, wrapped in white like an angel. It would be a pleasure to make her fall … "I haven't seen you here before."  
"You're asking me if I come here often?" She giggled, covering her mouth with her hand. There was some sort of bracelet around her wrist, just under the cuff of her dress—then, as he neared her, he saw that it wasn't a bracelet at all but a pattern inked into her skin, a matrix of swirling lines.  
He froze. "You—"  
He didn't finish. She moved with lightning swiftness, striking out at him with her open hand, a blow to his chest that would have sent him down gasping if he'd been a human being. He staggered back, and now there was something in her hand, a coiling whip that glinted gold as she brought it down, curling around his ankles, jerking him off his feet. He hit the ground, writhing, the hated metal biting deep into his skin. She laughed, standing over him, and dizzily he thought that he should have known. No human girl would wear a dress like the one Isabelle wore. She'd worn it to cover her skin—all of her skin.  
Isabelle yanked hard on the whip, securing it. Her smile glittered like poisonous water. "He's all yours, boys."  
A low laugh sounded behind him, and now there were hands on him, hauling him upright, throwing him against one of the concrete pillars. He could feel the damp stone under his back. His hands were pulled behind him, his wrists bound with wire. As he struggled, someone walked around the side of the pillar into his view: a boy, as young as Isabelle and just as pretty. His tawny eyes glittered like chips of amber. "So," the boy said. "Are there any more with you?"  
The blue-haired boy could feel blood welling up under the too-tight metal, making his wrists slippery. "Any other what?"  
"Come on now." The tawny-eyed boy held up his hands, and his dark sleeves slipped down, showing the runes inked all over his wrists, the backs of his hands, his palms. "You know what I am."  
Far back inside his skull, the shackled boy's second set of teeth began to grind.  
"Shadowhunter," he hissed.  
The other boy grinned all over his face. "Got you," he said.  
Pinny pushed the door to the storage room open, and stepped inside. For a moment she thought it was deserted. The only windows were high up and barred; faint street noise came through them, the sound of honking cars and squealing brakes. The room smelled like old paint, and a heavy layer of dust covered the floor, marked by smeared shoe prints.  
There's no one in here, she realized, looking around in bewilderment. It was cold in the room, despite the August heat outside. Her back was icy with sweat. She took a step forward, tangling her feet in electrical wires. She bent down to free her sneaker from the cables—and heard voices. A girl's laugh, a boy answering sharply. When she straightened up, she saw them.  
It was as if they had sprung into existence between one blink of her eyes and the next. There was the girl in her long white dress, her black hair hanging down her back like damp seaweed. The two boys were with her—the tall one with black hair like hers,who was incredibly hot but that was irrelevant...Damn you hormones!  
And the smaller, fair one, whose hair gleamed like brass in the dim light coming through the windows high above. The fair boy was standing with his hands in his pockets, facing the punk kid, who was tied to a pillar with what looked like piano wire, his hands stretched behind him, his legs bound at the ankles. His face was pulled tight with pain and fear.  
Heart hammering in her chest, Clary ducked behind the nearest concrete pillar and peered around it. She watched as the fair-haired boy paced back and forth, his arms now crossed over his chest. "So," he said. "You still haven't told me if there are any other of your kind with you."  
Your kind? Clary wondered what he was talking about. Maybe she'd stumbled into some kind of gang war. Of course, that was her luck. Shit!  
"I don't know what you're talking about." The blue-haired boy's tone was pained but surly.  
"He means other demons," said the dark-haired boy, speaking for the first time with his velvety voice. "You do know what a demon is, don't you?"  
The boy tied to the pillar turned his face away, his mouth working.  
"Demons," drawled the blond boy, tracing the word on the air with his finger. "Religiously defined as hell's denizens, the servants of Satan, but understood here, for the purposes of the Clave, to be any malevolent spirit whose origin is outside our own home dimension—"  
"That's enough, Jace," said the girl.  
"Isabelle's right," agreed the taller boy. "Nobody here needs a lesson in semantics—or demonology."  
They're crazy, Pinny thought. Actually crazy. But then again, one of her sayings was I'd rather be crazy, then normal and boring like you 'cause the crazy people have more fun nowadays.  
Jace raised his head and smiled. There was something fierce about the gesture, something that reminded Pinny of documentaries she'd watched about lions on the Discovery Channel, the way the big cats would raise their heads and sniff the air for prey. And then of course, male lions were weak assholes who let their females do all the hard work like the hunting. Bastards.  
"Isabelle and Alec think I talk too much," he said, confidingly. "Do you think I talk too much?"  
The blue-haired boy didn't reply. His mouth was still working. "I could give you information," he said. "I know where Valentine is."  
Jace glanced back at Alec, who shrugged. "Valentine's in the ground," Jace said. "The thing's just toying with us."  
Isabelle tossed her hair. "Kill it, Jace," she said. "It's not going to tell us anything."  
Jace raised his hand, and Pinny saw dim light spark off the knife he was holding. It was oddly translucent, the blade clear as crystal, sharp as a shard of glass, the hilt set with red stones. Can I have it?! Her mind pleaded. I want that bling bling...  
The bound boy gasped. "Valentine is back!" he protested, dragging at the bonds that held his hands behind his back. "All the Infernal Worlds know it—I know it—I can tell you where he is—"  
Rage flared suddenly in Jace's icy eyes. "By the Angel, every time we capture one of you bastards, you claim you know where Valentine is. Well, we know where he is too. He's in hell. And you—" Jace turned the knife in his grasp, the edge sparking like a line of fire. "You can join him there."  
Pinny could take no more. She really didn't wanted to end up in jail. She stepped out from behind the pillar. "Stop!" she cried. "You can't do this." ace whirled, so startled that the knife flew from his hand and clattered against the concrete floor. Isabelle and Alec turned along with him, wearing identical expressions of astonishment. The blue-haired boy hung in his bonds, stunned and gaping.  
It was Alec who spoke first. "What's this?" he demanded, looking from Pinny to his companions, as if they might know what she was doing there.  
"It's a girl," Jace said, recovering his composure. "Surely you've seen girls before, Alec. Your sister Isabelle is one." He took a step closer to Pinny, squinting as if he couldn't quite believe what he was seeing. "A mundie girl," he said, half to himself. "And she can see us."  
"Of course I can see you," Pinny said. "I'm not blind, you know. Retard."  
"Oh, but you are," said Jace, ignoring her insult and bending to pick up his knife. "You just don't know it." He straightened up. "You'd better get out of here, if you know what's good for you."  
"I'm not going anywhere," Pinny said. "If I do, you'll kill him." She pointed at the boy with the blue hair.  
"That's true," admitted Jace, twirling the knife between his fingers. "What do you care if I kill him or not?"  
"Be-because—" Pinny spluttered. "You can't just go around killing people."  
"You're right," said Jace. "You can't go around killing people." He pointed at the boy with blue hair, whose eyes were slitted. Pinny wondered if he'd fainted. "That's not a person, little girl. It may look like a person and talk like a person and maybe even bleed like a person. But it's a monster."  
"Jace," said Isabelle warningly. "That's enough."  
"You're crazy," Pinny said, backing away from him. "I've called the police, you know. They'll be here any second."  
"She's lying," said Alec, but there was doubt on his face. "Jace, do you—"  
He never got to finish his sentence. At that moment the blue-haired boy, with a high, yowling cry, tore free of the restraints binding him to the pillar, and flung himself on Jace.  
They fell to the ground and rolled together, the blue-haired boy tearing at Jace with hands that glittered as if tipped with metal. Pinny backed up, wanting to run, but her feet caught on a loop of wiring and she went down, knocking the breath out of her chest. She could hear Isabelle shrieking. Rolling over, Pinny saw the blue-haired boy sitting on Jace's chest. Blood gleamed at the tips of his razorlike claws.  
Isabelle and Alec were running toward them, Isabelle brandishing the whip in her hand. The blue-haired boy slashed at Jace with claws extended. Jace threw an arm up to protect himself, and the claws raked it, splattering blood. The blue-haired boy lunged again—and Isabelle's whip came down across his back. He shrieked and fell to the side.  
Swift as a flick of Isabelle's whip, Jace rolled over. There was a blade gleaming in his hand. He sank the knife into the blue-haired boy's chest. Blackish liquid exploded around the hilt. The boy arched off the floor, gurgling and twisting. With a grimace Jace stood up. His black shirt was blacker now in some places, wet with blood. He looked down at the twitching form at his feet, reached down, and yanked out the knife. The hilt was slick with black fluid.  
The blue-haired boy's eyes flickered open. His eyes, fixed on Jace, seemed to burn. Between his teeth, he hissed, "So be it. The Forsaken will take you all."  
Jace seemed to snarl. The boy's eyes rolled back. His body began to jerk and twitch as he crumpled, folding in on himself, growing smaller and smaller until he vanished entirely.  
Pinny scrambled to her feet, kicking free of the electrical wiring. She began to back away. None of them were paying attention to her. Alec had reached Jace and was holding his arm, pulling at the sleeve, probably trying to get a good look at the wound. Clary turned to run—and found her way blocked by Isabelle, whip in hand. The gold length of it was stained with dark fluid. She flicked it toward Clary, and the end wrapped itself around her wrist and jerked tight. Clary gasped with pain and surprise.  
"Stupid little mundie," Isabelle said between her teeth. "You could have gotten Jace killed."  
"Like I care," Pinny said, trying to pull her wrist back. The whip bit deeper into her skin. "You're all crazy. What do you think you are, vigilante killers? The police—"  
"The police aren't usually interested unless you can produce a body," said Jace. Cradling his arm, he picked his way across the cable-strewn floor toward Pinny. Alec followed behind him, face screwed into a scowl while his eyes glittered with something else. Interest?  
Pinny glanced at the spot where the boy had disappeared from, and said nothing. There wasn't even a smear of blood there—nothing to show that the boy had ever existed.  
"They return to their home dimensions when they die," said Jace. "In case you were wondering."  
"Jace," Alec hissed. "Be careful."  
Jace drew his arm away. A ghoulish freckling of blood marked his face. He still reminded her of a lion, with his wide-spaced, light-colored eyes, and that tawny gold hair. "She can see us, Alec," he said. "She already knows too much."  
"So what do you want me to do with her?" Isabelle demanded.  
"Let her go," Jace said quietly. Isabelle shot him a surprised, almost angry look, but didn't argue. The whip slithered away, freeing Pinny's arm. She rubbed her sore wrist and wondered how the hell she was going to get out of there.  
"Maybe we should bring her back with us," Alec said. "I bet Hodge would like to talk to her."  
"No way are we bringing her to the Institute," said Isabelle. "She's a mundie."  
"Or is she?" said Jace softly. His quiet tone was worse than Isabelle's snapping or Alec's curiosity and anger. "Have you had dealings with demons, little girl? Walked with warlocks, talked with the Night Children? Have you—"  
"My name is not 'little girl asshole,'" Pinny interrupted. "And I have no idea what you're talking about." Don't you? said a voice in the back of her mind. You saw that boy vanish into thin air. Jace isn't crazy—you just wish he was. "I don't believe in—in demons, or whatever you—"  
"Pinny?" It was Simon's voice. She whirled around. He was standing by the storage room door. One of the burly bouncers who'd been stamping hands at the front door was next to him. "Are you okay?" He peered at her through the gloom. "Pinny, why are you in here by yourself? What happened to the guys—you know, the ones with the knives?"  
Pinny stared at him, then looked behind her, where Jace, Isabelle, and Alec stood. Alec's eyes were narrowed. By anger or curiosity she didn't know. He amusedly mouthed 'Pinny' Probably silently asking her why in hell she had such a strange name, Jace was still in his bloody shirt with the knife in his hand. He grinned at her and dropped a half-apologetic, half-mocking shrug. Clearly he wasn't surprised that neither Simon nor the bouncer could see them.  
Somehow neither was Pinny. Slowly she turned back to Simon, knowing how she must look to him, standing alone in a damp storage room, her feet tangled in bright plastic wiring cables. "I thought they went in here," she said lamely. "But I guess they didn't. I'm sorry Simon." She glanced from Simon, whose expression was changing from worried to embarrassed, to the bouncer, who just looked annoyed. "I guess it was a mistake."  
Behind her, Isabelle giggled.  
"I don't believe it," Simon said stubbornly as Pinny, standing at the curb, tried desperately to hail a cab. Street cleaners had come down Orchard while they were inside the club, and the street was glossed black with oily water.  
"I know," she agreed. "You'd think there'd be some cabs. Where is everyone going at midnight on a Sunday?" She turned back to him, shrugging. "You think we'd have better luck on Houston?"  
"Not the cabs," Simon said. "You—I don't believe you. I don't believe those guys with the knives just disappeared."  
Pinny sighed. "Maybe there weren't any guys with knives, Simon. Maybe I just imagined the whole thing."  
"No way." Simon raised his hand over his head, but the oncoming taxis whizzed by him, spraying dirty water. "I saw your face when I came into that storage room. You looked seriously freaked out, like you'd seen a ghost."  
Pinny thought of Jace with his lion-cat eyes. She glanced down at her wrist, braceleted by a thin red line where Isabelle's whip had curled. No, not a ghost, she thought. Something even weirder than that.  
"It was just a mistake," she said wearily. She wondered why she wasn't telling him the truth. Except, of course, that he'd think she was crazy. And there was something about what had happened—something about the black blood bubbling up around Jace's knife, something about his voice when he'd said Have you talked with the Night Children? that she wanted to keep to herself.  
"Well, it was a hell of an embarrassing mistake," Simon said. He glanced back at the club, where a thin line still snaked out the door and halfway down the block. "I doubt they'll ever let us back into Pandemonium."  
"What do you care? You hate Pandemonium anyway." Pinny raised her hand again as a yellow shape sped toward them through the fog. This time, though, the taxi screeched to a halt at their corner, the driver laying into his horn as if he needed to get their attention.  
"Finally we get lucky." Simon yanked the taxi door open and slid onto the plastic-covered backseat. Pinny followed, inhaling the familiar New York cab smell of old cigarette smoke, leather, and hair spray. "We're going to Brooklyn," Simon said to the cabbie, and then he turned to Pinny. "Look, you know you can tell me anything, right?"  
Pinnny hesitated a moment, then nodded. "Sure, Simon," she said. "I know I can."  
She slammed the cab door shut behind her, and the taxi took off into the night.


	2. Chapter 2

2  
SECRETS AND LIES  
The Dark Prince sat astride his black steed, his sable cape flowing behind him. A golden circlet bound his blond locks, his handsome face was cold with the rage of battle, and …  
"And his arm looked like an eggplant. Damn you whore," Pinny muttered to herself in exasperation. The drawing just wasn't working. With a sigh she tore yet another sheet from her sketchpad, crumpled it up, and tossed it against the orange wall of her bedroom. Already the floor was littered with discarded balls of paper, a sure sign that her creative juices weren't flowing the way she'd hoped. She wished for the thousandth time that she could be a bit more like her mother. Everything Pearl Black drew, painted, or sketched was beautiful, and seemingly effortless.  
Pinny pulled her headphones out—cutting off Blacmore's Night in midsong—and rubbed her aching temples. It was only then that she became aware that the loud, piercing sound of a ringing telephone was echoing through the apartment. Tossing the sketchpad onto the bed, she jumped to her feet and ran into the living room, where the retro-red phone sat on a table near the front door.  
"Is this Pinynia Black?" The voice on the other end of the phone sounded familiar, though not immediately identifiable.  
Pinny twirled the phone cord nervously around her finger. "Yeees?"  
"Hi, I'm one of the knife-carrying hooligans you met last night in Pandemonium? I'm afraid I made a bad impression and was hoping you'd give me a chance to make it up to—"  
"SIMON!" Pinny held the phone away from her ear as he cracked up laughing. "That is so not funny!"  
"Sure it is. You just don't see the humor."  
"Jerkwad." Pinny sighed, leaning up against the wall. "You wouldn't be laughing if you'd been here when I got home last night."  
"Why not?"  
"My mom. She wasn't happy that we were late. She freaked out. It was messy."  
"What? It's not our fault there was traffic!" Simon protested. He was the youngest of three children and had a finely honed sense of familial injustice.  
"Yeah, well, she doesn't see it that way. I disappointed her, I let her down, I made her worry, blah blah blah. I am the bane of her existence," Pinnyy said, mimicking her mother's precise phrasing with not a single slight twinge of guilt. "She made it clear that if I ever do that again, I will rue the day I was born."  
"So, are you grounded?" Simon asked, a little too loudly. Pinny could hear a low rumble of voices behind him: people talking over each other.  
"I don't know yet," she said. "My mom went out this morning with Luke, and they're not back yet. I think they are shagging but then again, that is an image I do not want to think about. Where are you, anyway? Eric's?"  
"Yeah. We just finished up practice." A cymbal clashed behind Simon. Pinny winced. "Eric's doing a poetry reading over at Java Jones tonight," Simon went on, naming a coffee shop around the corner from Pinny's that sometimes had live music at night. "The whole band's going to go to show their support. Want to come?"  
"Yeah, all right." Pinny paused, tugging on the phone cord anxiously. "Wait. No wait a little longer, wait...no."  
"Shut up, guys, will you?" Simon yelled, the faintness of his voice making Pinny suspect that he was holding the phone away from his mouth. He was back a second later, sounding troubled. "Was that a yes or a no?"  
"I don't know." Pinny bit her lip. Something she did way too much. "My mom's still mad at me about last night. I'm not sure I want to piss her off by asking for any favors. If I'm going to get in trouble, I don't want it to be on account of Eric's lousy poetry."  
"Come on, it's not so bad," Simon said. Eric was his next-door neighbor, and the two had known each other most of their lives. They weren't close the way Simon and Clary were, but they had formed a rock band together at the start of sophomore year, along with Eric's friends Matt and Kirk. They practiced together faithfully in Eric's parents' garage every week. "Besides, it's not a favor," Simon added, "it's a poetry slam around the block from your house. It's not like I'm inviting you to some orgy in Hoboken. Your mom can come along if she wants."  
A mental image came to her mind as she pictured a orgy while her mother was watching. She began laughing until she had to wipe away her tears.  
"ORGY IN HOBOKEN!" Pinny heard someone, probably Eric, yell. Another cymbal crashed. She imagined her mother listening to Eric read his poetry, and she shuddered inwardly.  
"I don't know. If all of you show up here, I think she'll freak."  
"Then I'll come alone. I'll pick you up and we can walk over there together, meet the rest of them there. Your mom won't mind. She loves me."  
Pinny had to laugh. "Sign of her questionable taste, if you ask me."  
"Nobody did." Simon clicked off, amid shouts from his bandmates.  
Pinny hung up the phone and glanced around the living room. Evidence of her mother's artistic tendencies was everywhere, from the handmade velvet throw pillows piled on the dark red sofa to the walls hung with Pearl's paintings, carefully framed—landscapes, mostly: the winding streets of downtown Manhattan lit with golden light; scenes of Prospect Park in winter, the gray ponds edged with lacelike films of white ice.  
On the mantel over the fireplace was a framed photo of Pinny's father. A thoughtful-looking fair man in military dress, his eyes bore the telltale traces of laugh lines at the corners. He'd been a decorated soldier serving overseas. Pearl had some of his medals in a small box by her bed. Not that the medals had done anyone any good when Jonathan Clark had crashed his car into a tree just outside Albany and died before his daughter was even born.  
Pearl had gone back to using her maiden name after he died. She never talked about Pinny's father, but she kept the box engraved with his initials, J. C., next to her bed. Along with the medals were one or two photos, a wedding ring, and a single lock of blond hair. Sometimes Pearl took the box out and opened it and held the lock of hair very gently in her hands before putting it back and carefully locking the box up again. Drama-mama that was one of Pinny's nicknames for her.  
The sound of the key turning in the front door roused Pinny out of her reverie. Hastily she threw herself down on the couch and tried to look as if she were immersed in one of the paperbacks her mother had left stacked on the end table. Pearl recognized reading as a sacred pastime, a usefull education and usually wouldn't interrupt Pinny in the middle of a book, even to yell at her.  
The door opened with a thump. It was Luke, his arms full of what looked like big square pieces of pasteboard. When he set them down, Pinny saw that they were cardboard boxes, folded flat. He straightened up and turned to her with a smile.  
"Hey, Un—hey, Luke," she said. He'd asked her to stop calling him Uncle Luke about a year ago, claiming that it made him feel old, and anyway reminded him of Uncle Tom's Cabin. Besides, he'd reminded her gently, he wasn't really her uncle, just a close friend of her mother's who'd known her all her life. "Where's Mom?"  
"Parking the truck," he said, straightening his lanky frame with a groan. He was dressed in his usual uniform: old jeans, a flannel shirt, and a bent pair of gold-rimmed spectacles that sat askew on the bridge of his nose. "Remind me again why this building has no service elevator?"  
"Because it's old, and has character," Pinny said immediately. Luke grinned. "What are the boxes for?" she asked.  
His grin vanished. "Your mother wanted to pack up some things," he said, avoiding her gaze.  
"What things?" Pinny asked with a tone that suggested angry suspicion.  
He gave an airy wave. "Extra stuff lying around the house. Getting in the way. You know she never throws anything out. So what are you up to? Studying?" He plucked the book out of her hand and read out loud: "'The world still teems with those motley beings whom a more sober philosophy has discarded. Fairies and goblins, ghosts and demons, still hover about—'" He lowered the book and looked at her over his glasses. "Is this for school?"  
"The Golden Bough? No. School's not for a few weeks." Pinny took the book back from him. "It's my mom's."  
"I had a feeling."  
She dropped it back on the table. "Luke?"  
"Uh-huh?" The book already forgotten, he was rummaging in the tool kit next to the hearth. "Ah, here it is." He pulled out an orange plastic tape gun and gazed at it with deep satisfaction.  
"What would you do if you saw something nobody else could see?"  
The tape gun fell out of Luke's hand, and hit the tiled hearth. He knelt to pick it up, not looking at her. "You mean if I were the only witness to a crime, that sort of thing?"  
"No. I mean, if there were other people around, but you were the only one who could see something. As if it were invisible to everyone but you."  
He hesitated, still kneeling, the dented tape gun gripped in his hand.  
"I know it sounds crazy," Pinny ventured nervously, "but …"  
He turned around. His eyes, very blue behind the glasses, rested on her with a look of firm affection. "Pinny, you're an artist, like your mother. That means you see the world in ways that other people don't. It's your gift, to see the beauty and the horror in ordinary things. It doesn't make you crazy—just different. There's nothing wrong with being different."  
Pinny pulled her legs up, and rested her chin on her knees. In her mind's eye she saw the storage room, Isabelle's gold whip, the blue-haired boy convulsing in his death spasms, and the handsome tall blackhaired boy. Alec. Beauty and horror. She said, "If my dad had lived, do you think he'd have been an artist too?"  
Luke looked taken aback. Before he could answer her, the door swung open and Pinny's mother stalked into the room, her boot heels clacking on the polished wooden floor. She handed Luke a set of jingling car keys and turned to look at her daughter.  
Pearl Black was a slim, compact woman, her hair a dyed dirty blonde and way more shorter than Pinny's and twice as neater. At the moment it was straight, behind her ear there was a graphite pen. She wore paint-spattered overalls over a lavender T-shirt, and brown hiking boots whose soles were caked with oil paint.  
People always told Pinny that she looked like her mother, but she couldn't see it herself. The only thing that was similar about them was their figures: They were both slender, tiny and had similiar legs. She knew she wasn't beautiful like her mother was. To be beautiful you had to be willowy and tall. When you were as short as Pinny was, 5'3 and she already had been that for four years, you were cute. Not pretty or beautiful, but cute. Throw in wild coloured hair and a face with a scar that people told her had reminded them of Harry Potter and tiny scars and wounds everywhere since she was the most clumsy person on earth, she was a Raggedy Ann to her mother's Barbie doll.  
Pearl even had a graceful way of walking that made people turn their heads to watch her go by. Pinny, by contrast, was always tripping over her feet. The only time people turned to watch her go by was when she hurtled past them as she fell downstairs. One time, Pinny accidently stepped out of bed onto a plate with her breakfast. The glass had been broken but her foot had been remained without a scratch. Sadly there had been a huge piece of glass in her hand while her hand hadn't been close to the goddamned plate. Those things always happened to her and she could not help it.  
"Thanks for bringing the boxes up," Pinny's mother said to Luke, and smiled at him. He didn't return the smile. Pinny's stomach did an uneasy flip. Clearly there was something going on. "Sorry it took me so long to find a space. There must be a million people at the park today—"  
"Mom?" Pinny interrupted. "What the fuck are the boxes for?"  
"Language young lady."  
Pearl bit her lip. Luke flicked his eyes toward Pinny, mutely urging Pearl forward. With a nervous twitch of her wrist, Pearl pushed a dangling lock of hair behind her ear and went to join her daughter on the couch.  
Up close Pinny could see how tired her mother looked. There were dark half-moons under her eyes, and her lids were pearly with sleeplessness.  
"Is this about last night?" Pinny asked.  
"No," her mother said quickly, and then hesitated. "Maybe a little. You shouldn't have done what you did last night. You know better."  
"And I already apologized. What is this about? If you're grounding me, get it over with."  
"I'm not," said her mother, "grounding you." Her voice was as taut as a wire. She glanced at Luke, who shook his head.  
"Just tell her, Pearl," he said.  
"Could you not talk about me like I'm not here?" Pinny said angrily. "And what do you mean, 'tell me'? Tell me what?"  
Pearl expelled a sigh. "We're going on vacation."  
Luke's expression went blank, like a canvas wiped clean of paint.  
Pinny shook her head. "That's what this is about? You're going on vacation?" She sank back against the cushions. "I don't get it. Why the big production?"  
"I don't think you understand. I meant we're all going on vacation. The three of us—you, me, and Luke. We're going to the farmhouse."  
"Oh." Pinny glanced at Luke, but he had his arms crossed over his chest and was staring out the window, his jaw pulled tight. She wondered what was upsetting him. He loved the old farmhouse in upstate New York—he'd bought and restored it himself ten years before, and he went there whenever he could. "For how long?"  
"For the rest of the summer," said Pearl. "I brought the boxes in case you want to pack up any books, painting supplies—"  
"For the rest of the summer?" Pinny sat upright with indignation. "I can't do that, Mom. I have plans—Simon and I were going to have a back-to-school party, and I've got a bunch of meetings with my digital art group, and ten more classes at Tisch—"  
"I'm sorry about Tisch. But the other things can be canceled. Simon will understand, and so will your art group."  
Pinny heard the implacability in her mother's tone and realized she was serious. "But I paid for those digital art classes! I saved up all year! You promised." She whirled, turning to Luke. "Tell her! Tell her it isn't fair!"  
Luke didn't look away from the window, though a muscle jumped in his cheek. "She's your mother. It's her decision to make."  
"I don't get it." Pinny turned back to her mother. "Why?"  
"I have to get away, Pinny," Pearl said, the corners of her mouth trembling. "I need the peace, the quiet, to paint. And money is tight right now—"  
"So sell some more of Dad's stocks," Pinny said angrily. "That's what you usually do, isn't it? Come on the guy is freaking dead and we need it so you say!"  
Pearl recoiled. "That's hardly fair."  
"Look, go if you want to go. I don't care. I'll stay here without you. I can work; I can get a job at Starbucks or something. Simon said they're always hiring. I'm old enough to take care of myself—"  
"No!" The sharpness in Pearl's voice made Pinny jump. "I'll pay you back for the art classes, Pinny. But you are coming with us. It isn't optional. You're too young to stay here on your own. Something could happen."  
"Ehm, didn't you just said have low budget?! I AM FIFTEEN NOT RETARDED! Besides, what do you mean something could happen? Like what? What the fucking hell could happen?" Pinny demanded.  
There was a crash. She turned in surprise to find that Luke had knocked over one of the framed pictures leaning against the wall. Looking distinctly upset, he set it back. When he straightened, his mouth was set in a grim line. "I'm leaving."  
Pearl bit her lip. "Wait." She hurried after him into the entryway, catching up just as he seized the doorknob. Twisting around on the sofa, Pinny could just overhear her mother's urgent whisper. "…Bane," Pearl was saying. "I've been calling him and calling him for the past three weeks. His voice mail says he's in Tanzania. What am I supposed to do?"  
"Pearl." Luke shook his head. "You can't keep going to him forever."  
"But Pinny—"  
"Isn't Jonathan," Luke hissed. "You've never been the same since it happened, but Pinny isn't Jonathan."  
What does my father have to do with this? Pinny thought, bewildered.  
"I can't just keep her at home, not let her go out. She won't put up with it."  
"Of course she won't!" Luke sounded really angry. "She's not a pet, she's a teenager. Almost an adult."  
"Damn right I am!" Pinny hissed softly but furious.  
"If we were out of the city …"  
"Talk to her, Jocelyn." Luke's voice was firm. "I mean it." He reached for the doorknob.  
The door flew open. Pearl and Pinny both gave a little scream. Well a huge scream in Pinny's case.  
"Jesus!" Luke exclaimed.  
"Actually, it's just me," said Simon. "Although I've been told the resemblance is startling." He waved at the laughing Pinny from the doorway. "You ready?"  
Pearl took her hand away from her mouth. "Simon, were you eavesdropping?"  
Simon blinked. "No, I just got here." He looked from Pearl's pale face to Luke's grim one. "Is something wrong? Should I go?"  
"Don't bother," Luke said. "I think we're done here." He pushed past Simon, thudding down the stairs at a rapid pace. Downstairs, the front door slammed shut.  
Simon hovered in the doorway, looking uncertain. "I can come back later," he said. "Really. It wouldn't be a problem."  
"That might—" Pearl began, but Pinny was already on her feet.  
"Forget it, Simon. We're leaving," she said, grabbing her messenger bag from a hook near the door. She slung it over her shoulder, glaring at her mother. "See you later, Mom."  
Pearl bit her lip. "Pinny, don't you think we should talk about this?"  
"We'll have plenty of time to talk while we're on 'vacation,'" Pinny said venomously, and had the satisfaction of seeing her mother flinch. "Don't wait up," she added, and, grabbing Simon's arm, she half-dragged him out the front door.  
He dug his heels in, looking apologetically over his shoulder at Pinny's mother, who stood small and forlorn in the entryway, her hands knitted tightly together. "Bye, Mrs. Black!" he called. "Have a nice evening!"  
"Oh, shut the fuck up, Simon," Pinny snapped, and slammed the door behind them, cutting off her mother's reply.  
"Jesus, woman, don't rip my arm off," Simon protested as Pinnyhauled him downstairs after her, her green Skechers slapping against the wooden stairs with every angry step. She glanced up, half-expecting to see her mother glaring down from the landing, but the apartment door stayed shut.  
"Sorry," Pinny muttered, while a grin formed, letting go of his wrist. She paused at the foot of the stairs, her messenger bag banging against her hip.  
Pinny's brownstone, like most in Park Slope, had once been the single residence of a wealthy family. Shades of its former grandeur were still evident in the curving staircase, the chipped marble entryway floor, and the wide single-paned skylight overhead. Now the house was split into separate apartments, and Pinny and her mother shared the three-floor building with a downstairs tenant, an elderly woman who ran a psychic's shop out of her apartment. She hardly ever came out of it, though customer visits were infrequent. A gold plaque fixed to the door proclaimed her to be MADAME DOROTHEA, SEERESS AND PROPHETESS.  
The thick sweet scent of incense spilled from the half-open door into the foyer. Pinny could hear a low murmur of voices.  
"Nice to see she's doing a booming business," Simon said. "It's hard to get steady prophet work these days."  
"Do you have to be sarcastic about everything?" Pinny snapped.  
Simon blinked, clearly taken aback. "I thought you liked it when I was witty and ironic."  
Pinny was about to reply when the door to Madame Dorothea's swung fully open and a man stepped out. He was tall, with maple-syrup-colored skin, gold-green eyes like a cat's, and tangled black hair. He grinned at her blindingly, showing sharp white teeth.  
A wave of dizziness came over her, the strong sensation that she was going to faint.  
Simon glanced at her uneasily. "Are you all right? You look like you're going to pass out."  
She blinked at him. "What? No, I'm fine."  
He didn't seem to want to let it drop. "You look like you just saw a ghost."  
She shook her head. The memory of having seen something teased her, but when she tried to concentrate, it slid away like water. "Nothing. I thought I saw Dorothea's cat, but I guess it was just a trick of the light." Simon stared at her. "I haven't eaten anything since yesterday," she added defensively. "I guess I'm a little out of it. Or I am just going crazy. Pick what you prefer."  
He slid a comforting arm around her shoulders. "Come on, I'll buy you some food."  
"I just can't believe she's being like this," Pinny said for the fourth time, chasing a stray bit of guacamole around her plate with the tip of a nacho. They were at a neighborhood Mexican joint, a hole in the wall called Nacho Mama. "Like grounding me every other week wasn't bad enough. Now I'm going to be exiled for the rest of the summer."  
"Well, you know, your mom gets like this sometimes," Simon said. "Like when she breathes in or out." He grinned at her around his veggie burrito. She let out an annoyed sigh and growled out of frustration.  
"Oh, sure, act like it's funny," she said. "You're not the one getting dragged off to the middle of nowhere for fucking God knows how long—"  
"Pinny." Simon interrupted her tirade. "I'm not the one you're mad at. Besides, it isn't going to be permanent."  
"How do you know that?"  
"Well, because I know your mom," Simon said, after a pause. "I mean, you and I have been friends for what, ten years now? I know she gets like this sometimes. She'll think better of it."  
Pinny picked a hot pepper off her plate and nibbled the edge meditatively. She didn't liked peppers, but they would do for now. "Do you, though?" she said. "Know her, I mean? I sometimes wonder if anyone does."  
Simon blinked at her. "You lost me there."  
Pinny sucked in air to cool her burning mouth. "I mean, she never talks about herself. I don't know anything about her early life, or her family, or much about how she met my dad. She doesn't even have wedding photos. It's like her life started when she had me. That's what she always says when I ask her about it."  
"Aw." Simon made a face at her. "That's sweet."  
"No, it isn't. It's weird. Weird Simon mark my words. It's weird that I don't know anything about my grandparents. I mean, I know my dad's parents weren't very nice to her, but could they have been that bad? What kind of people don't want to even meet their granddaughter?"  
"Maybe she hates them. Maybe they were abusive or something," Simon suggested. "She does have those scars."  
Pinny stared at him. "She has what?"  
He swallowed a mouthful of burrito. "Those little thin scars. All over her back and her arms. I have seen your mother in a bathing suit, you know."  
"I never noticed any scars," Pinny said decidedly. "I think you're imagining things."  
He stared at her, and seemed about to say something when her cell phone, buried in her messenger bag, began an insistent blaring. Pinny fished it out, gazed at the numbers blinking on the screen, and scowled. "It's my mom. Damn my freaking life"  
"I could tell from the look on your face. You going to talk to her?"  
"Not right now," Pinny said, not feeling a supposed familiar bite of guilt in her stomach as the phone stopped ringing and voice mail picked up. "I don't want to fight with her."  
"You can always stay at my house," Simon said. "For as long as you want."  
"Well, we'll see if she calms down first." Pinny punched the voice mail button on her phone. Her mother's voice sounded tense, but she was clearly trying for lightness. "Baby, I'm sorry if I sprang the vacation plan on you. Come on home and we'll talk." Pinny hung the phone up before the message ended, feeling even guiltier and still angry at the same time. "She wants to talk about it."  
"Do you want to talk to her?"  
"I don't know." Pinny rubbed the back of her hand across her eyes. "Are you still going to the poetry reading?"  
"I promised I would."  
Pinny stood up, pushing her chair back. "Then I'll go with you. I'll call her when it's over." The strap of her messenger bag slid down her arm. Simon pushed it back up absently, his fingers lingering at the bare skin of her shoulder.  
The air outside was spongy with moisture, the humidity frizzing Pinny's hair and sticking Simon's blue T-shirt to his back. "So, what's up with the band?" she asked. "Anything new? There was a lot of yelling in the background when I talked to you earlier."  
Simon's face lit up. "Things are great," he said. "Matt says he knows someone who could get us a gig at the Scrap Bar. We're talking about names again too."  
"Oh, yeah?" Pinny hid a smile. Simon's band never actually produced any music. Mostly they sat around in Simon's living room, fighting about potential names and band logos. She sometimes wondered if any of them could actually play an instrument. "What's on the table?"  
"We're choosing between Sea Vegetable Conspiracy and Rock Solid Panda."  
Pinny shook her head. "Those are both terrible." But then again, Pinny smiled. Remembereing Rock Solid, a club for children from the age of ten to twelve. She had been a member, and the adults always organized awesome games from capture the flag to darings. She still remembered having to eat unions and one of her friends had to have thrown icecubs on her back They were stuck in her shirt the whole night. Another time you had to form a pair of two and they all had to change one of them into diaper. She still remembered Ellen on her lap in a diaper and all the baby accesories. It looked hilarious but it was shitty since Ellen was heavier and incredibly tall. Still Pinny had kept the baby bottle. She still had it.  
"Eric suggested Lawn Chair Crisis."  
"Maybe Eric should stick to gaming."  
"But then we'd have to find a new drummer."  
"Oh, is that what Eric does? I thought he just mooched money off you and went around telling girls at school that he was in a band in order to impress them."  
"Not at all," Simon said breezily. "Eric has turned over a new leaf. He has a girlfriend. They've been going out for three months."  
"Practically married," Pinny said, stepping around a couple pushing a toddler in a stroller: a little girl with yellow plastic clips in her hair who was clutching a pixie doll with gold-streaked sapphire wings. Out of the corner of her eye Pinny thought she saw the wings flutter. She turned her head hastily.  
"Which means," Simon continued, "that I am the last member of the band not to have a girlfriend. Which, you know, is the whole point of being in a band. To get girls."  
"I thought it was all about the music." A man with a cane cut across her path, heading for Berkeley Street. She glanced away, afraid that if she looked at anyone for too long they would sprout wings, extra arms, or long forked tongues like snakes. "Who cares if you have a girlfriend, anyway?"  
"I care," Simon said gloomily. "Pretty soon the only people left without a girlfriend will be me and Wendell the school janitor. And he smells like Windex." Pinny let out a small laugh.  
"At least you know he's still available."  
Simon glared. "Not funny, Black."  
"There's always Sheila 'The Thong' Barbarino," Pinny suggested. Pinny had sat behind her in math class in ninth grade. Every time Sheila had dropped her pencil—which had been often—Pinny had been treated to the sight of Sheila's underwear riding up above the waistband of her super-low-rise jeans.  
"That is who Eric's been dating for the past three months," Simon said. "His advice, meanwhile, was that I ought to just decide which girl in school had the most rockin' bod and ask her out on the first day of classes."  
"Eric is a sexist pig," Pinny said, suddenly not wanting to know which girl in school Simon thought had the most rockin' bod. "Maybe you should call the band the Sexist Pigs."  
"It has a ring to it." Simon seemed unfazed. Pinny made a face at him, her messenger bag vibrating as her phone blared. She fished it out of the zip pocket. "Is it your mom again?" he asked.  
Pinny nodded. She could see her mother in her mind's eye, small and alone in the doorway of their apartment. Guilt wanted to unfurl in her chest. But then again, Pinny ignored or didn't feel guilt.  
She glanced up at Simon, who was looking at her, his eyes dark with concern. His face was so familiar she could have traced its lines in her sleep. She thought of the lonely weeks that stretched ahead without him, and shoved the phone back into her bag. "Come on," she said. "We're going to be late for the show."


	3. Chapter 3

3  
SHADOWHUNTER  
By the time they got to Java Jones, Eric was already onstage, swaying back and forth in front of the microphone with his eyes squinched shut. He'd dyed the tips of his hair pink for the occasion. Behind him, Matt, looking stoned, was beating irregularly on a djembe.  
"This is going to suck so hard I might die," Pinny predicted. She grabbed Simon's sleeve and tugged him toward the doorway. "If we make a run for it, we can still get away."  
He shook his head determinedly. "I'm nothing if not a man of my word." He squared his shoulders. Yeah right. "I'll get the coffee if you find us a seat. What do you want?"  
"Just coffee. Black—like my soul and name." She didn't really liked coffee, but it was good for her. It had some effects on you know, going to the toilet and since Pinny had problems with that since she was born, coffe had turned into her medicine.  
Simon headed off toward the coffee bar, muttering under his breath something to the effect that it was a far, far better thing he did now than he had ever done before. Pinny went to find them a seat.  
The coffee shop was crowded for a Monday; most of the threadbare-looking couches and armchairs were taken up with teenagers enjoying a free weeknight. The smell of coffee and clove cigarettes was overwhelming. Finally Clary found an unoccupied love seat in a darkened corner toward the back. The only other person nearby was a blond girl in an orange tank top, absorbed in playing with her iPod. Good, Pinny thought, Eric won't be able to find us back here after the show to ask how his poetry was.  
The blond girl leaned over the side of her chair and tapped Pinny on the shoulder. "Excuse me." Pinny yelped and looked up in surprise. "Is that your boyfriend?" the girl asked.  
Pinny followed the line of the girl's gaze, already prepared to say, No, I don't know him, when she realized the girl meant Simon. Gosh. He was headed toward them, face scrunched up in concentration as he tried not to drop either of his Styrofoam cups. "Uh, no," Pinny said. "He's my best friend."  
The girl beamed. "He's cute. Does he have a girlfriend?"  
Pinny hesitated a second too long before replying. "No."  
The girl looked suspicious. "Is he gay?"  
Pinny luaghed and shook her head and before she could say anything else, Simon returned. The blond girl sat back hastily as he set the cups on the table and threw himself down next to Pinny. "I hate it when they run out of mugs. Those things are hot." He blew on his fingers and scowled. Clary tried to hide a smile as she watched him. Normally she never thought about whether Simon was good-looking or not. He had pretty dark eyes, she supposed, and he'd filled out well over the past year or so. With the right haircut—  
"You're staring at me," Simon said. "Why are you staring at me? Have I got something on my face?"  
I should tell him, she thought, though some part of her was strangely reluctant. I'd be a bad friend if I didn't. "Don't look now, but that blond girl over there thinks you're cute," she whispered.  
Simon's eyes flicked sideways to stare at the girl, who was industriously studying an issue of Shonen Jump. "The girl in the orange top?" Pinny nodded. Simon looked dubious. "What makes you think so?" Tell him. Go on, tell him. Pinny opened her mouth to reply, and was interrupted by a burst of feedback. She winced and covered her ears as Eric, onstage, wrestled with his microphone. Damn you bastard!  
"Sorry about that, guys!" he yelled. "All right. I'm Eric, and this is my homeboy Matt on the drums. My first poem is called 'Untitled.'" Just like your life...Pinny chuckled. He probably couldn't think of a title, dumbass.  
He screwed up his face as if in pain, and wailed into the mike. "'Come, my faux juggernaut, my nefarious loins! Slather every protuberance with arid zeal!'"  
Pinny drew on her hand a big XD and showed it to Simon. Simon slid down in his seat as a grin appeared.. "Please don't tell anyone I know him."  
Pinny giggled. "Who uses the word 'loins'?"  
"Eric," Simon said grimly. "All his poems have loins in them."  
"'Turgid is my torment!'" Eric wailed. "'Agony swells within!'"  
"You bet it does," Pinny said. "Especially now. " She slid down in the seat next to Simon. "Anyway, about that girl who thinks you're cute—"  
"Never mind that for a second," Simon said. Pinny blinked at him in surprise. "There's something I wanted to talk to you about."  
"Furious Mole is not a good name for a band," Pinny said immediately.  
"Not that," Simon said. "It's about what we were talking about before. About me not having a girlfriend."  
"Oh." Pinny lifted one shoulder in a shrug. "Oh, I don't know. Ask Jaida Jones out," she suggested, naming one of the few girls at St. Xavier's she actually liked. "She's nice, and she likes you."  
"I don't want to ask Jaida Jones out."  
"Why not?" Pinny found herself seized with a sudden, unspecific resentment. "You don't like smart girls? Still seeking a rockin' bod?" "Neither," said Simon, who seemed agitated. "I don't want to ask her out because it wouldn't really be fair to her if I did…."  
He trailed off. Pinny leaned forward. From the corner of her eye she could see the blond girl leaning forward too, plainly eavesdropping. "Why not?"  
"Because I like someone else," Simon said.  
"Okay." Simon looked faintly greenish, the way he had once when he'd broken his ankle playing soccer in the park and had had to limp home on it. She wondered what on earth about liking someone could possibly have him wound up to such a pitch of anxiety. "You're not gay, are you?"  
Simon's greenish color deepened. "If I were, I would dress better."  
"So, who is it, then?" Pinny asked. She was about to add that if he were in love with Sheila Barbarino, Eric would kick his ass,but then again, Eric was a weak pussy. Then she wanted to reply when she heard someone cough loudly behind her. It was a derisive sort of cough, the kind of noise someone might make who was trying not to laugh out loud.  
She turned around.  
Sitting on a faded green sofa a few feet away from her was Alec. He was wearing the same dark clothes he'd had on the night before in the club. His arms were bare and covered with faint white lines like old scars. His wrists bore wide metal cuffs; she could see the an arrow faintly hidden by his jacket. He was looking right at her, the side of his narrow mouth quirked in amusement. Worse than the feeling of being laughed at was Pinny's absolute conviction that he hadn't been sitting there five minutes ago. Shitty pants. FUCK MY LIFE!She wanted to scream those very same words on the top of her lungs, but sadly she had to be silenced.  
"What is it?" Simon had followed her gaze, but it was obvious from the blank expression on his face that he couldn't see Alec.  
But I see you mwahahaha. She stared at Alec as she thought it, and he raised his left hand to wave at her. A ring glittered on a slim finger. He got to his feet and began walking, unhurriedly, toward the door. Pinny's lips parted in surprise. He was leaving, just like that. Is the asshole truly thinking I should follow him? Damn arrogance and damn his handsomeness.  
She felt Simon's hand on her arm. He was saying her name, asking her if something was wrong. She barely heard him. "I'll be right back," she heard herself say, as she sprang off the couch, almost forgetting to set her coffee cup down. She raced toward the door, leaving Simon staring after her.  
Pinny burst through the doors, terrified that Alec would have vanished into the alley shadows like a ghost. But he was there, slouched against the wall. He had just taken something out of his pocket and was punching buttons on it. He looked up in surprise as the door of the coffee shop fell shut behind her.  
In the rapidly falling twilight, his hair looked like the night that was approaching. "Your friend's poetry is terrible," he said nonchalantly.  
Pinny blinked, caught momentarily off guard. "Huh?"  
"I said his poetry was terrible. It sounds as if he ate a dictionary and started vomiting up words randomly."  
"I do not care about Eric's poetry." Pinnyy was furious. "I want to know a few things okay?First, why are you following me?"  
"Who said I was following you?"  
"Nice try. really nice. But you know, it is strange that I have never seen you around, and then suddenly I see you commit a murder and suddenly I see you around. And you were eavesdropping, too. Do you want to tell me what this is about, or should I just call the freaking police?"  
"And tell them what?" Alecsaid witheringly. "They can't see me. Trust me, little girl, the police aren't going to arrest someone they can't see."  
"I told you guys before, my name is not 'little girl,'" she said through her teeth. "It's Pinynia." "Really?," he asked. "Pretty name. Unusual too. I had wondered why he called you Pinny instead of the usual Penny's. Pinynia does has a ring to it I presume."  
"I have no idea what you're talking about."  
"Haven't people complimented you before?" he said. There was a curious contempt in his dark eyes. "You know, you seem to be a mundane like any other mundane, yet you can see me. It's strange."  
"What's a mundane?"  
"Someone of the human world. Someone like you."  
"But you're human," Pinny said. "Unless you are actually a alien begging to be your bride..."  
"I am a human," he said. "But I'm not like you. And I am certainly no alien" There was no defensiveness in his tone. He sounded like he didn't care if she believed him or not.  
"To Love Ru reference. But anyway you all think you're better. That's why you were laughing at us."  
"I don't think I am better specifically. I was laughing at you because declarations of love amuse me, especially when unrequited," he said. "And because your Simon is one of the most mundane mundanes I've ever encountered. And because Hodge thought you might be dangerous, but if you are, you certainly don't know it."  
"I'm dangerous?" Pinny echoed in astonishment. "OMG, call the cops, let them arrest my cute little ass. Seriously, I saw you kill someone last night. I saw you drive a knife up under his ribs, and—" And I saw him slash at Jace with fingers like razor blades. I saw him cut and bleeding, so I guess you could be human.  
"I may be a killer," Alec said, "but I know what I am. Can you say the same?"  
"I'm an ordinary human being, just like you said. Duh, ever payed attention to yourself? Who's the freaking heck is Hodge if I may ask?"  
"My tutor. And you are definitely ot ordinary Pinynia." He leaned forward. "Let me see your right hand." "My right hand?" Pinny echoed. He nodded. "If I show you my hand, will you finally leave me alone?"  
"If you want that, yes." His voice was edged with amusement.  
She didn't knew for sure if she wanted to be left alone by him, maybe...DAMN YOU HORMONES! She held out her right hand grudgingly. Her usual caramel coloured skin looked pale in the half-light spilling from the windows, it was dotted with light silver alike tiny scars and flecks. Pinny had white fleck all ove her, most weren't visible and the ones who were , were mostly on her shoulder. She stared at some scars caused by the attacks of her own kittens, who were to stubborn to heal like wounds. Somehow she felt as exposed as if she were pulling up her shirt and bra and was showing him her naked chest. A mental image of that formed into her mind. Totally irrelevant and her lips turned up. It was a crossing between pouting and smiling. It was something Pinny always did when she was flustered. Many people couldn't see if she blushed or not so unconciously she developed that habbit. So people still saw when she was flattered. He took her hand in his and turned it over. "Nothing." He sounded almost disappointed. "You're not left-handed, are you?"  
"Nope. Why?"  
He released her hand with a shrug. "Most Shadowhunter children get Marked on their right hands—when they're still young. It's a permanent rune that lends an extra skill with weapons." He showed her the back of his hand; it looked perfectly normal to her.  
"I don't see anything," she said.  
"Let your mind relax," he suggested. "Wait for it to come to you. Like waiting for something to rise to the surface of water."  
"You're crazy." But she bit her lip and relaxed, gazing at his hand, seeing the tiny lines across the knuckles, the long joints of the fingers—  
It jumped out at her suddenly, flashing like a DON'T WALK sign. A black design like an eye across the back of his hand. She blinked, and it vanished. "A tattoo?"  
He smiled smugly and lowered his hand. "I thought you could do it. And it's not a tattoo—it's a Mark. They're runes, burned into our skin."  
"They make you handle weapons better?" Pinny found this hard to believe, though perhaps no more hard to believe than the existence of zombies. Zombie Apocalypse!  
"Different Marks do different things. Some are permanent but the majority vanish when they've been used." "That's why your arms aren't all inked up today?" she asked. "Even when I concentrate?"  
"That's exactly why." He sounded pleased with himself. "We knew you had the Sight, at least." He glanced up at the sky. "It's nearly full dark. We should go."  
"We? I thought you were going to leave me alone."  
"I lied. Sorry," Alec said with a small shred of embarrassment. "Hodge said I have to bring you to the Institute with me. He wants to talk to you."  
"Why would he want to talk to me?"  
"Because you know the truth now," Alec said. "There hasn't been a mundane who knew about us for quite some time."  
"About us?" she echoed. "You mean people like you. People who believe in demons."  
"People who kill them," said Alec. "We're called Shadowhunters. At least, that's what we call ourselves. The Downworlders have less complimentary names for us."  
"Downworlders?"  
"The Night Children. Warlocks. The fey. The magical folk of this dimension."  
Pinny shook her head and groaned. "Don't stop there. I suppose there are also, what, vampires and werewolves and zombies?"  
"Yes,"Alec nodded and looked her in her own darkened eyes. "Although you mostly find zombies farther south, where the voudun priests are."  
"So there is going to be a zombie apocalypse? I KNEW IT!" Alec chuckled. "No, I don't think so." He grinned as the faint lights sparkled as stars in his eyes.  
"What about mummies then? Do they only hang around Egypt?"  
"No, the don't exist."  
"They don't? Shit! There goes my plan for the nobel prize.""Sorry ," Alec said, still chuckling a little. "Look, Hodge will explain all this to you when you see him."  
Pinny crossed her arms over her chest. "What if I don't want to see him?"  
"That's your problem. You can come either willingly or unwillingly."  
Pinny couldn't believe her ears. "Are you threatening to kidnap me?"  
"Sorry again Pinynia," Alec said, "yes."  
"This truly makes my day. What next, We all dance around in glittery tutu's while singing kumbaya and while performing that in a bus driving by a drunken Charlie Sheen?!" Pinny exclaimed. Alec laughed. "Who is Charlie Sheen?" He asked. "OMG." Pinny just shook her head but then she remembered that he was going to kidnap her. She opened her mouth to protest angrily, but was interrupted by a strident buzzing noise. Her phone was ringing again.  
"Pick up please. The buzzing is annoying," Alec said bored.  
The phone stopped ringing, then started up again, loud and insistent. Pinny frowned—her mom must really be freaking out. She half-turned away from Alec and began digging in her bag. By the time she unearthed the phone, it was on its third set of rings. She raised it to her ear. "Mom?"  
"Oh, Pinny. Oh, thank God." A sharp prickle of alarm ran up Clary's spine. Her mother sounded panicked. "Listen to me—"  
"It's all right, Mom. I'm fine. I'm on my way home—"  
"No!" Terror scraped Pearl's voice raw. "Don't come home! Do you understand me, Pinny? Don't you dare to come home. Go to Simon's. Go straight to Simon's house and stay there until I can—" A noise in the background interrupted her: the sound of something falling, shattering, something heavy striking the floor—  
"Mom!" Pinny shouted into the phone. "Mom, are you okay?"  
A loud buzzing noise came from the phone. Pinny's mother's voice cut through the static: "Just promise me you won't come home. Go to Simon's and call Luke—tell him that he's found me—" Her words were drowned out by a heavy crash like splintering wood.  
"Who's found you? Mom, did you call the police? Did you—"  
Her frantic question was cut off by a noise Pinny would never forget—a harsh, slithering noise, followed by a thump. Pinny heard her mother draw in a sharp breath before speaking, her voice eerily calm: "I love you, Pinny."  
The phone went dead.  
"Mom!" Pinny shrieked into the phone. "Mom, are you there?" CALL ENDED, the screen said. But why would her mother have hung up like that?  
"Pinny," Alec said. It was the first time she'd ever heard him say her nickname. "What's going on?"  
Pinny ignored him. Feverishly she hit the button that dialed her home number. There was no answer except a double-tone busy signal.  
Pinny's hands had begun to shake uncontrollably. When she tried to redial, the phone slipped out of her shaking grasp and hit the pavement hard. She dropped to her knees to retrieve it, but it was dead, a long crack visible across the front. "Dammit!" Almost in tears, she threw the phone down. Her hadn covered her mouth and she begand sobbig  
"Stop that please." Alec hauled her to her feet, his hand gripping her wrist. "Has something happened?"  
"Give me your phone," Pinny said, grabbing the black metal oblong out of his shirt pocket. "I have to—"  
"It's not a phone," Alec said, making no move to get it back. "It's a Sensor. It can't call someone."  
"But I need to call the police!"  
"Tell me what happened first." She tried to yank her wrist back, but his grip was incredibly strong. "I can help you Pinny."  
Rage, panick and sandness flooded through Pinny, as a hot tide through her veins. Without even thinking about it, she bit down his hand and her nails were raking his cheek. He jerked back in surprise. Tearing herself free, Clary ran toward the lights of Seventh Avenue.  
"I am sorry!" She screamed to Alec.  
When she reached the street, she spun around, half-expecting to see Alec at her heels. But the alley was empty. For a moment she stared uncertainly into the shadows. Nothing moved inside them. She spun on her heel and ran for home.


	4. Chapter 4

4  
RAVENER  
The night had gotton even hotter, and running home felt like swimming as fast as she could through boiling soup. At the corner of her block Pinny got trapped at a DON'T WALK sign. She jittered up and down impatiently on the balls of her feet while traffic whizzed by in a blur of headlights. She tried to call home again, but Alec hadn't been lying; his phone wasn't a phone. At least, it didn't look like any phone Pinny had ever seen before. The Sensor's buttons didn't have numbers on them, just more of those bizarre symbols, and there was no screen.  
Jogging up the street toward her house, she saw that the second-floor windows were lit, the usual sign that her mother was home. Okay, she told herself. Everything's fine. But her stomach tightened the moment she stepped into the entryway. The overhead light had burned out, and the foyer was in darkness. The shadows seemed full of secret movement. Shivering, she started upstairs.  
"And just where do you think you're going?" said a voice.  
Pinny whirled. "What—"  
She broke off. Her eyes were adjusting to the dimness, and she could see the shape of a large armchair, drawn up in front of Madame Dorothea's closed door. The old woman was wedged into it like an overstuffed cushion. In the dimness Clary could see only the round shape of her powdered face, the white lace fan in her hand, the dark, yawning gap of her mouth when she spoke. "Your mother," Dorothea said, "has been making a god-awful racket up there. What's she doing? Moving furniture?"  
"I don't think—"  
"And the stairwell light's burned out, did you notice?" Dorothea rapped her fan against the arm of the chair. "Can't your mother get her boyfriend in to change it?"  
"Luke isn't—"  
"The skylight needs washing too. It's filthy. No wonder it's nearly pitch-black in here."  
Luke is NOT the freaking landlord old hag, Pinny wanted to say, but didn't. This was typical of her elderly neighbor. Once she got Luke to come around and change the lightbulb, she'd ask him to do a hundred other things—pick up her groceries, grout her shower. Once she'd made him chop up an old sofa with an axe so she could get it out of the apartment without taking the door off the hinges.  
Pinny sighed. "I'll ask."  
"You'd better." Dorothea snapped her fan shut with a flick of her wrist.  
Pinny's sense that something was wrong only increased when she reached the apartment door. It was unlocked, hanging slightly open, spilling a wedge-shaped shaft of light onto the landing. With a feeling of increasing panic she pushed the door open.  
Inside the apartment the lights were on, all the lamps, everything turned up to full brightness. The glow stabbed into her eyes.  
Her mother's keys and blue handbag were on the small wrought-iron shelf by the door, where she always left them. "Mom?" Clary called out. "Okaasan Guinea Pig I'm home." It was her nickname for her mom. Okaasan is Japanese for mother. She had given her mother that name when she once was in a goofy mood and began boringly stroking her mother's hair. Pearl had replied with, "Pinny I am not a guinea pig." So that's what you get. There was no reply. She went into the living room. Both windows were open, yards of gauzy white curtains blowing in the breeze like restless ghosts. Only when the wind dropped and the curtains settled did Pinny see that the cushions had been ripped from the sofa and scattered around the room. Some were torn lengthwise, cotton innards spilling onto the floor. The bookshelves had been tipped over, their contents scattered. The piano bench lay on its side, gaping open like a wound, Pearl's beloved music books and Pinny's book which she had copied her favourite songs in, were spewing out.  
Most terrifying were the paintings. Every single one had been cut from its frame and ripped into strips, which were scattered across the floor. It must have been done with a knife—canvas was almost impossible to tear with your bare hands. The empty frames looked like bones picked clean. Pinny felt a scream rising up in her chest. "Mom!" she shrieked. "Where are you? Mommy!"  
She hadn't called pearl "Mommy" since she was nine.  
Heart pumping, she raced into the kitchen. It was empty, the cabinet doors open, a smashed bottle of Tabasco sauce spilling peppery red liquid onto the linoleum. Her knees felt like bags of water. She knew she should race out of the apartment, get to a phone, call the police. But all those things seemed distant—she needed to find her mother first, needed to see that she was all right. What if robbers had come, what if her mother had put up a fight—?  
What kind of robbers didn't take a wallet with them, or the TV, the DVD player, or the expensive laptops?  
She was at the door to her mother's bedroom now. For a moment it looked as if this room, at least, had been left untouched. Pearl's handmade flowered quilt was folded carefully on the duvet. Pinny's own face smiled back at her from the top of the bedside table, five years old, gap-toothed smile framed by dark brown/black hair with a silver glow. A sob rose in Pinny's chest. Mom, she cried inside, what happened to you?  
Silence answered her. No, not silence—a noise sounded through the apartment, raising the short hairs along the nape of her neck. Like something being knocked over—a heavy object striking the floor with a dull thud. The thud was followed by a dragging, slithering noise—and it was coming toward the bedroom. Stomach contracting in terror, Pinny scrambled to her feet and turned around slowly.  
For a moment she thought the doorway was empty, and she felt a wave of relief. Then she looked down.  
It was crouched against the floor, a long, scaled creature with a cluster of flat black eyes set dead center in the front of its domed skull. Something like a cross between an alligator and a centipede, it had a thick, flat snout and a barbed tail that whipped menacingly from side to side. Multiple legs bunched underneath it as it readied itself to spring.  
A shriek tore itself out of Pinny's throat. She staggered backward, tripped, and fell, just as the creature lunged at her. She rolled to the side and it missed her by inches, sliding along the wood floor, its claws gouging deep grooves. A low growl bubbled from its throat.  
She scrambled to her feet and tried to kick it. It lunged at Pinny and she ran toward the hallway, but the thing was too fast for her. It sprang again, landing just above the door, where it hung like a gigantic malignant spider, staring down at her with its cluster of eyes. Its jaws opened slowly, showing a row of fanged teeth spilling greenish drool. A long black tongue flickered out between its jaws as it gurgled and hissed. To her horror Pinny realized that the noises it was making were words.  
"Girl," it hissed. "Flesh. Blood. To eat, oh, to eat."  
It began to slither slowly down the wall. Some part of Pinny had passed beyond terror into a sort of icy stillness. The thing was on its feet now, crawling toward her. Backing away, she seized a heavy framed photo off the bureau beside her—herself and her mother and Luke at Coney Island, about to go on the bumper cars—and flung it at the monster.  
The photograph hit its midsection and bounced off, striking the floor with the sound of shattering glass. The creature didn't seem to notice. It came on toward her, broken glass splintering under its feet. "Bones, to crunch, to suck out the marrow, to drink the veins …"  
"I am not tasty!" she replied panicked. Pinny's back hit the wall. She could back up no farther. She felt a movement against her hip and nearly jumped out of her skin. Her pocket. Plunging her hand inside, she drew out the plastic thing she'd taken from Alec. The Sensor was shuddering, like a cell phone set to vibrate. The hard material was almost painfully hot against her palm. She closed her hand around the Sensor just as the creature sprang.  
The creature hurtled into her, knocking her to the ground, and her head and shoulders slammed against the floor. She twisted to the side, but it was too heavy. It was on top of her, an oppressive, slimy weight that made her want to gag. "To eat, to eat," it moaned. "But it is not allowed, to swallow, to savor."  
"Shit" she mumbled. The hot breath in her face stank of blood. She couldn't breathe. Her ribs felt like they might shatter. Her arm was pinned between her body and the monster's, the Sensor digging into her palm. She twisted, trying to work her hand free. "Valentine will never know. He said nothing about a girl. Valentine will not be angry." Its lipless mouth twitched as its jaws opened, slowly, a wave of stinking breath hot in her face.  
Pinny's hand came free. With a scream she hit out at the thing, wanting to smash it, to blind it. She had almost forgotten the Sensor. As the creature lunged for her face, jaws wide, she jammed the Sensor between its teeth and felt hot, acidic drool coat her wrist and spill in burning drops onto the bare skin of her face and throat. As if from a distance, she could hear herself screaming. Looking almost surprised, the creature jerked back, the Sensor lodged between two teeth. It growled, a thick angry buzz, and threw its head back. Pinny saw it swallow, saw the movement of its throat. I'm next, she thought, panicked. I'm—  
Suddenly the thing began to twitch. Spasming uncontrollably, it rolled off Pinny and onto its back, multiple legs churning the air. Black fluid poured from its mouth.  
Gasping for air, Pinny rolled over and started to scramble away from the thing. She'd nearly reached the door when she heard something whistle through the air next to her head. She tried to duck, but it was too late. An object slammed heavily into the back of her skull, and she collapsed forward into blackness.  
Light stabbed through her eyelids, blue, white, and red. There was a high wailing noise, rising in pitch like the scream of a terrified child. Pinny gagged and opened her eyes.  
She was lying on cold damp grass. The night sky rippled overhead, the pewter gleam of stars washed out by city lights. Alec knelt beside her, the silver cuffs on his wrists throwing off sparks of light as he tore the piece of cloth he was holding into strips. "Don't move Pinynia."  
The wailing threatened to split her ears in half. Pinny turned her head to the side, disobediently, and was rewarded with a razoring stab of pain that shot down her back. She was lying on a patch of grass behind Pearl's carefully tended rosebushes. The Sevillana's and Mikado's still neat as always. The foliage partially hid her view of the street, where a police car, its blue-and-white light bar flashing, was pulled up to the curb, siren wailing. Already a small knot of neighbors had gathered, staring as the car door opened and two blue-uniformed officers emerged.  
The police. She tried to sit up, and gagged again, fingers spasming into the damp earth.  
"I told you not to move," Alec hissed. "That Ravener demon got you in the back of the neck. It was half-dead so it wasn't much of a sting, but we have to get you to the Institute. Hold still."  
"That thing—the monster—it talked." Pinny was shuddering uncontrollably.  
"You've heard a demon talk before." Alec's hands were gentle as he slipped the strip of knotted cloth under her neck, and tied it. It was smeared with something waxy, like the gardener's salve her mother used to keep her paint- and turpentine-abused hands soft.  
"The demon in Pandemonium—it looked like a person."  
"It was an Eidolon demon. A shape-changer. Raveners look different. All demon species do."  
"It said it was going to eat me."  
"But it didn't. You've killed it." Alec finished the knot and sat back.  
To Pinny's relief the pain in the back of her neck had faded. She hauled herself into a sitting position. "The police are here." Her voice came out like a frog's croak. "We should—"  
"There's nothing they can do. Somebody probably heard you screaming and reported it. Ten to one those aren't real police officers. Demons have a way of hiding their tracks."  
"My mom," Pinny said, forcing the words through her swollen throat.  
"There's Ravener poison coursing through your veins right now. You'll be dead in an hour if you don't come with me." He got to his feet and held out a hand to her. She took it and he pulled her upright. "Come on."  
The world tilted. Alec slid a hand across her back, holding her steady. He smelled of dirt, blood, and metal. "Can you walk?"  
"I think so." She glanced through the densely blooming bushes. She could see the police coming up the path. One of them, a slim blond woman, held a flashlight in one hand. As she raised it, Pinny saw the hand was fleshless, a skeleton hand sharpened to bone points at the fingertips. "Her hand—"  
"I told you they might be demons." Alec glanced at the back of the house. "We have to get out of here. Can we go through the alley?"  
Pinny shook her head. "It's bricked up. There's no way—" Her words dissolved into a fit of coughing. She raised her hand to cover her mouth. It came away red. She whimpered.  
He grabbed her wrist, turned it over so the white, vulnerable flesh of her inner arm lay bare under the moonlight. Traceries of blue vein mapped the inside of her skin, carrying poisoned blood to her heart, her brain. Pinny felt her knees buckle. There was something in Alec's hand, something sharp and silver. She tried to pull her hand back, but his grip was too hard: She felt a stinging kiss against her skin. When he let go, she saw an inked black symbol like the ones that covered his skin, just below the fold of her wrist. This one looked like a set of overlapping circles.  
"What's that supposed to do?"  
"It'll hide you," he said. "Temporarily." He slid the thing Pinny had thought was a knife back into his belt. It was a long, luminous cylinder, as thick around as an index finger and tapering to a point. "My stele," he said.  
Pinny didn't ask what that was. She was busy trying not to fall over. The ground was heaving up and down under her feet. "Alec," she whispered out of breath, and she crumpled into him. He caught her as if he were used to catching fainting girls, as if he did it every day. Maybe he did. He swung her up into his arms, saying something in her ear that sounded like Covenant. He held her bridal style and she was remembered of the Bodygaurd. Mom loved Whitney Houston and they would daily sing a long to one of her Mom's favourites. It's not right but it's okay. If Pinny had the power to cry, she would have let a waterfall out. Pinny tipped her head back to look at him but saw only the stars cartwheeling across the dark sky overhead. His name meant Defender, it was a good one, they had given it nicely. He held her as the protector he was. Then the bottom dropped out of everything, and even Alec's arms around her were not enough to keep her from falling.


	5. Chapter 5

5  
CLAVE AND COVENANT  
"Do you think she'll ever wak up? It's been three days already."  
"You have to give her time. Demon poison is strong stuff, and she's a mundane. She hasn't got runes to keep her strong like we do."  
"Mundies die awfully easily, don't they?"  
"Isabelle, you know it's bad luck to talk about death in a sickroom."  
Three freaking days, Pinnyy thought slowly. All her thoughts ran as thickly and slowly as blood or honey. I have to wake up.  
But she couldn't.  
The dreams held her, one after the other, a river of images that bore her along like a leaf tossed in a current. She saw her mother lying in a hospital bed, eyes like bruises in her white face. She saw Luke, standing atop a pile of bones. Alec and Jace with white feathered wings sprouting out of their backs, Isabelle sitting naked with her whip curled around her like a net of gold rings, Simon with crosses burned into the palms of his hands. Angels, falling and burning. Falling out of the sky.

"I told you it was the same girl."  
"I know. Little thing, isn't she? Alec said she killed a Ravener."  
"Yeah. I thought she was a pixie the first time we saw her. She's not pretty enough to be a pixie, though."  
"Well, nobody looks their best with demon poison in their veins. Is Hodge going to call on the Brothers?"  
"I hope not. They give me the creeps. Anyone who mutilates themselves like that—"  
"We mutilate ourselves Izzy."  
"I know, Jace, but when we do it, it isn't permanent. And it doesn't always hurt …."  
"If you're old enough. Speaking of which, where is Alec? He saved her, didn't he? I would have thought he'd take some interest in her recovery."  
"Hodge said he hasn't been to see her since he brought her here. I guess he doesn't care or my brother is angry... Again"  
"Sometimes I wonder if he—Look! She moved!"  
"I guess she's alive after all." A sigh. "I'll tell Hodge."  
Pinny's eyelids felt as if they had been sewed shut. She imagined she could feel tearing skin as she peeled them slowly open and blinked for the first time in three days.  
She saw clear blue sky above her, white puffy clouds and chubby angels with gilded ribbons trailing from their wrists. Am I dead? she wondered. Could heaven actually look like this? She squeezed her eyes shut and opened them again: This time she realized that what she was staring at was an arched wooden ceiling, painted with a rococo motif of clouds and cherubs.  
Painfully she hauled herself into a sitting position. Every part of her ached, especially the back of her neck. She glanced around. She was tucked into a linen-sheeted bed, one of a long row of similar beds with metal headboards. Her bed had a small nightstand beside it with a white pitcher and cup on it. Lace curtains were pulled across the windows, blocking the light, although she could hear the faint, ever-present New York sounds of traffic coming from outside.  
"So, you're finally awake," said a dry voice. "Hodge will be pleased. We all thought you'd probably die in your sleep."  
Pinny turned. Isabelle was perched on the next bed, her long jet-black hair wound into two thick braids that fell past her waist. Her white dress had been replaced by jeans and a tight blue tank top, though the red pendant still winked at her throat. Her dark spiraling tattoos were gone; her skin was as unblemished as the surface of a bowl of cream.  
"Sorry to disappoint you." Pinny's voice rasped like sandpaper. "Is this that Institute of yours?"  
Isabelle rolled her eyes. "Is there anything Alec didn't tell you?"  
Pinny coughed and stared at the other girl annoyed. "This is the Institute, right?"  
"Yes. You're in the infirmary, not that you haven't figured that out already."  
A sudden, stabbing pain made Pinnyy clutch at her stomach. She gasped.  
Isabelle looked at her in alarm. "Are you okay?"  
The pain was fading, but Pinny was aware of an acid feeling in the back of her throat and a strange light-headedness. "My stomach duh."  
"Oh, right. I almost forgot. Hodge said to give you this when you woke up." Isabelle grabbed for the ceramic pitcher and poured some of the contents into the matching cup, which she handed to Pinny. It was full of a cloudy liquid that steamed slightly. It smelled like herbs and something else, something rich and dark. "You haven't eaten anything in three days," Isabelle pointed out. "That's probably why you feel sick."  
Pinny gingerly took a sip. It was delicious, rich and satisfying with a buttery aftertaste. "No shit sherlock. What is this stuff anyway?"  
Isabelle shrugged. "One of Hodge's tisanes. They always work." She slid off the bed, landing on the floor with a catlike arch of her back. "I'm Isabelle Lightwood, by the way. I live here."  
"I know your name. I'm Pinynia. Pinynia Black. Did Alec bring me here?"  
Isabelle nodded. "Hodge was furious. You got ichor and blood all over the carpet in the entryway. If he'd done it while my parents were here he'd have gotten grounded for sure." She looked at Pinny more narrowly. "Alec said you killed that Ravener demon all by yourself."  
A quick image of the scorpion thing with its crabbed, evil face flashed through Pinny's mind; she shuddered and clutched the cup more tightly. "More accidentally then on purpose."  
"But you're a mundie."  
"Amazing, isn't it?" Pinny said, savoring the look of thinly disguised amazement on Isabelle's face. "Where is Alec? Is he around?"  
Isabelle shrugged. "Somewhere," she said. "I should go tell everyone you're up. Hodge'll want to talk to you."  
"Hodge is Alec's tutor, right?"  
"Hodge tutors us all." She pointed. "The bathroom's through there, and I hung some of my old clothes on the towel rack in case you want to change."  
Pinny went to take another sip from the cup and found that it was empty. She no longer felt hungry or light-headed either, which was a relief. She set the cup down and hugged the sheet around herself. "What happened to my clothes?"  
"They were covered in blood and poison. Jace with Alec's permission burned them."  
"Did he?" asked Clary. "Tell me, are they always really rude, or do they save that for mundanes?"  
"Oh, my brother can be quite hateful. And Jace? He's rude to everyone," said Isabelle airily. "It's what makes him so damn sexy. That, and he's killed more demons than anyone else his age."  
Pinny looked at her, perplexed. "Isn't he your brother?"  
That got Isabelle's attention. She laughed out loud. "Jace? My brother? No. Whatever gave you that idea?"  
"Well, he lives here with you," Pinny pointed out. "Doesn't he?"  
Isabelle nodded. "Well, yes, but …"  
"Why doesn't he live with his own parents?"  
For a fleeting moment Isabelle looked uncomfortable. "Because they're dead."  
Pinny's mouth opened in surprise. "Did they die in an accident?"  
"No." Isabelle fidgeted, pushing a dark lock of hair behind her left ear. "His mother died when he was born. His father was murdered when he was ten. Jace saw the whole thing."  
"Oh," Pinny said, her voice small. "Was it …demons?"  
Isabelle got to her feet. "Look, I'd better let everyone know you've woken up. They've been waiting for you to open your eyes for three days. Oh, and there's soap in the bathroom," she added. "You might want to clean up a little. You smell."  
Pinny glared at her. "Thanks a lot."  
"Any time."  
Isabelle's clothes looked ridiculous. Pinny had to roll the legs on the jeans up several times before she stopped tripping on them, and the plunging neckline of the red tank top only emphasized her cup D.  
She cleaned up in the small bathroom, using a bar of hard lavender soap. Drying herself with a white hand towel left damp hair straggling around her face in fragrant tangles. She squinted at her reflection in the mirror. There was a purpling bruise high up on her left cheek, and her lips were dry and swollen.  
I have to call Luke, she thought. Surely there was a phone around here somewhere. Maybe they'd let her use it after she talked to Hodge.  
She found her Skechers and her Dr Martens placed neatly at the foot of her infirmary bed, her keys tied into the laces. He probably took them with him. Sliding her feet into them, she took a deep breath and left to find Isabelle.  
The corridor outside the infirmary was empty. Pinny glanced down it, perplexed. It looked like the sort of hallway she sometimes found herself racing down in nightmares, shadowy and infinite. Glass lamps blown into the shapes of roses hung at intervals on the walls, and the air smelled like dust and candle wax.  
In the distance she could hear a faint and delicate noise, like wind chimes shaken by a storm. She set off down the corridor slowly, trailing a hand along the wall. The Victorian-looking wallpaper was faded with age, burgundy and pale gray. Each side of the corridor was lined with closed doors.  
The sound she was following grew louder. Now she could identify it as the sound of a piano being played with desultory but undeniable skill, though she couldn't identify the tune.  
Turning the corner, she came to a doorway, the door propped fully open. Peering in she saw what was clearly a music room. A grand piano stood in one corner, and rows of chairs were arranged against the far wall. A covered harp occupied the center of the room.  
Jace was seated at the grand piano, his slender hands moving rapidly over the keys. He was barefoot, dressed in jeans and a gray T-shirt, his tawny hair ruffled up around his head as if he'd just woken up. Watching the quick, sure movements of his hands across the keys, Clary remembered how it had felt to be lifted up by those hands, his arms holding her up and the stars hurtling down around her head like a rain of silver tinsel.  
She must have made some noise, because he twisted around on the stool, blinking into the shadows. "Alec?" he said. "Is that you?"  
"It's not Alec. It's me." She stepped farther into the room. "Clary."  
Piano keys jangled as he got to his feet. "Our own Sleeping Beauty. Who finally kissed you awake?"  
"Nobody. I woke up on my own."  
"Was there anyone with you?"  
"Isabelle, but she went off to get someone—Hodge, I think. She told me to wait, but—"  
"Alec should have warned her about your habit of never doing what you're told." Jace squinted at her. She wondered why Alec told him that. "Are those Isabelle's clothes? They look ridiculous on you."  
"I could point out that you burned my clothes."  
"It was purely precautionary ad don't forget you savior gave me the permission." He slid the gleaming black piano cover closed. "Come on, I'll take you to Hodge."  
The Institute was huge, a vast cavernous space that looked less like it had been designed according to a floor plan and more like it had been naturally hollowed out of rock by the passage of water and years. Through half-open doors Pinny glimpsed countless identical small rooms, each with a stripped bed, a nightstand, and a large wooden wardrobe standing open. Pale arches of stone held up the high ceilings, many of the arches intricately carved with small figures. She noticed certain repeating motifs: angels and swords, suns and roses.  
"Why does this place have so many bedrooms?" Pinny asked. "I thought it was a research institute."  
"This is the residential wing. We're pledged to offer safety and lodging to any Shadowhunter who requests it. We can house up to two hundred people here."  
"But most of these rooms are empty."  
"People come and go. Nobody stays for long. Usually it's just us: Alec, Isabelle, Max, their parents—and me and Hodge."  
"Max?"  
"You met the beauteous Isabelle? Alec is her elder brother. Max is their younger half sibling, but he's overseas with his parents."  
"On vacation?"  
"Not exactly." Jace hesitated. "You can think of them as—as foreign diplomats, and of this as an embassy, of sorts. Right now they're in the Shadowhunter home country, working out some very delicate peace negotiations. They brought Max with them because he's so young."  
"Shadowhunter home country?" Clary's head was spinning. "What's it called?"  
"Idris."  
"I've never heard of it."  
"You wouldn't have." That irritating superiority was back in his voice. "Mundanes don't know about it. There are wardings—protective spells—up all over the borders. If you tried to cross into Idris, you'd simply find yourself transported instantly from one border to the next. You'd never know what happened."  
"So it's not on any maps?"  
"Not mundie ones. For our purposes you can consider it a small country between Germany and France."  
"But there isn't anything between Germany and France. Except Switzerland." Suddenly I remembered my mom saying about that she had lived in Switzerland. No, it couldn't be right? Right?  
"Precisely," said Jace.  
"I take it you've been there. To Idris, I mean."  
"I grew up there." Jace's voice was neutral, but something in his tone let her know that more questions in that direction would not be welcome. "Most of us do. There are, of course, Shadowhunters all over the world. We have to be everywhere, because demonic activity is everywhere. But to a Shadowhunter, Idris is always 'home.'"  
"Like Mecca or Jerusalem is to people with faith," said Pinny, thoughtfully. "So most of you are brought up there, and then when you grow up—"  
"We're sent where we're needed," said Jace shortly. "And there are a few, like Isabelle and Alec, who grow up away from the home country because that's where their parents are. With all the resources of the Institute here, with Hodge's training—" He broke off. "This is the library."  
They had reached an arch-shaped set of wooden doors. A blue Persian cat with yellow eyes lay curled in front of them. It raised its head as they approached and yowled. "Hey, Church," Jace said, stroking the cat's back with a bare foot. The cat slit its eyes in pleasure.  
"Wait," said Pinny. "Alec and Isabelle and Max—they're the only Shadowhunters your age that you know, that you spend time with?"  
Jace stopped stroking the cat. "Yes."  
"That must get kind of lonely."  
"I have everything I need." He pushed the doors open. After a moment's hesitation she followed him inside.  
The library was circular, with a ceiling that tapered to a point, as if it had been built inside a tower. The walls were lined with books, the shelves so high that tall ladders set on casters were placed along them at intervals. These were no ordinary books either—these were books bound in leather and velvet, clasped with sturdy-looking locks and hinges made of brass and silver. Their spines were studded with dully glowing jewels and illuminated with gold script. They looked worn in a way that made it clear that these books were not just old but were well used, and had been loved.  
The floor was polished wood, inlaid with chips of glass and marble and bits of semiprecious stone. The inlay formed a pattern that Pinny couldn't quite decipher—it might have been the constellations, or even a map of the world; she suspected she'd have to climb up into the tower and look down in order to see it properly.  
In the center of the room sat a magnificent desk. It was carved from a single slab of wood, a great, heavy piece of oak that gleamed with the dull shine of years. The slab rested upon the backs of two angels, carved from the same wood, their wings gilded and their faces engraved with a look of suffering, as if the weight of the slab were breaking their backs. Behind the desk sat a thin man with gray-streaked hair and a long beaky nose.  
"A book lover, I see," he said, smiling at Pinny. "You didn't tell me that, Jace."  
Jace chuckled. Pinny could tell that he had come up behind her and was standing there with his hands in his pockets, grinning that infuriating grin of his. "We haven't done much talking during our short acquaintance," he said. "I'm afraid our reading habits didn't come up."  
Pinny turned around and shot him a glare.  
"How can you tell?" she asked the man behind the desk. "That I like books, I mean."  
"The look on your face when you walked in," he said, standing up and coming around from behind the desk. "Somehow I doubted you were that impressed by me."  
Pinny stifled a gasp as he rose. For a moment it seemed to her that he was strangely misshapen, his left shoulder humped and higher than the other. As he approached, she saw that the hunch was actually a bird, perched neatly on his shoulder—a glossy feathered creature with bright black eyes.  
"This is Hugo," the man said, touching the bird on his shoulder. "Hugo is a raven, and, as such, he knows many things. I, meanwhile, am Hodge Starkweather, a professor of history, and, as such, I do not know nearly enough."  
Pinny laughed a little, despite herself, and shook his outstretched hand with confidence or, as some said, the infamous Pinny Pride. "Pinynia Black."  
"Honored to make your acquaintance," he said. "I would be honored to make the acquaintance of anyone who could kill a Ravener with her bare hands."  
"It wasn't my bare hands." It still felt odd to be congratulated for killing something. "It was Alec's—well, I don't remember what it was called, but—"  
"She means his Sensor," Jace said. "She shoved it down the thing's throat. The runes must have choked it. I guess he'll need another one," he added, almost as an afterthought. "One of us should have mentioned that."  
"There are several extra in the weapons room," said Hodge. When he smiled at Pinny, a thousand small lines rayed out from around his eyes, like the cracks in an old painting. "That was quick thinking. What gave you the idea of using the Sensor as a weapon?"  
Before she could reply, a sharp laugh sounded through the room. Pinny had been so enraptured by the books and distracted by Hodge that she hadn't seen Alec sprawled in an overstuffed red armchair by the empty fireplace. "I still can't believe it either Hodge, a silly little girl, killing demons..." he said.  
At first Pinny didn't even register his words. She was too busy staring at him. Like many only children, she was fascinated by the resemblance between siblings, and now, in the full light of day, she could see exactly how much Alec looked like his sister. They had the same jet-black hair, the same slender eyebrows winging up at the corners, the same pale, high-colored skin. But where Isabelle was all arrogance, Alec slumped down in the chair as if he hoped nobody would notice him. His lashes were long and dark like Isabelle's, but where her eyes were black, his were the dark blue of bottle glass. They gazed at Pinny with a hostility as pure and concentrated as acid.  
What on earth is wrong with this guy?! Three days ago he was all kind and awesome, now he is a major jerkwad. Geez, is it his time of the month?! Or is he pregnant or what the fuck else!  
"I'm not quite sure what you mean, Alec." Hodge raised an eyebrow. Pinny wondered how old he was; there was a sort of agelessness to him, despite the gray in his hair. He wore a neat gray tweed suit, perfectly pressed. He would have looked like a kindly college professor if it hadn't been for the thick scar that drew up the right side of his face. She wondered how he had gotten it. "Are you suggesting that she didn't kill that demon after all?"  
"Of course she did. I was ther but look at her—she's a mundie, Hodge, and a little kid, at that. It is just way too weird and this case is a bit suspicious. Don't you think?"  
"I'm not a little kid," Pinny interrupted. "I'm sixteen years old—well, I will be over two weeks."  
"The same age as Isabelle," Hodge said. "Would you call her a child?"  
"Isabelle hails from one of the greatest Shadowhunter dynasties in history," Alec said dryly. "This girl, on the other hand, hails from Brooklyn."  
"Shut up you asshole!"Pinny was outraged. "And so what? I just killed a demon in my own house, and you're going to be a dickhead about it because I'm not some spoiled-rotten rich brat like you and your sister?!"  
Alec looked astonished. "What did you call me?"  
Jace sounded as if he could barely contain his laughter. "She has a point, Alec. Plenty of Downworld activity going on in the boroughs, you know. It's those bridge-and-tunnel demons you really have to watch out for—"  
"It's not funny, Jace," Alec interrupted, starting to his feet. "Are you just going to let her stand there and call me names?"  
"Yes," Jace said kindly. "It'll do you good—try to think of it as endurance training."  
"We may be parabatai," Alec said tightly. "But your flippancy is wearing on my patience."  
"And your obstinacy is wearing on mine. When I found her, she was lying on the floor in a pool of blood with a dying demon practically on top of her. I watched as it vanished. If she didn't kill it, who did?"  
"I am allowed to be suspicious about the brat!"  
"Now you're suggesting it is all a suspicious case?"  
Alec's mouth tightened. "You do knew how our parents would think of it. If anyone knew about this, we could be reported to the Clave."  
"That's not entirely true," Hodge said. "The Law does allow us to offer sanctuary to mundanes in certain circumstances. A Ravener has already attacked Pinny's mother—she could well have been next."  
Attacked. Pinny wondered if this was a euphemism for "murdered." The raven on Hodge's shoulder cawed softly.  
"Raveners are search-and-destroy machines," Alec said. "They act under orders from warlocks or powerful demon lords. Now, what interest would a warlock or demon lord have in an ordinary mundane household?" His eyes when he looked at Pinny were bright with dislike. "Any thoughts?"  
Pinny said, "It must have been a fucking mistake. Besides, couldn't you try to figure that one out when you were there three days ago!"  
"Demons don't make those kinds of mistakes. If they went after your mother, there must have been a reason. If she were innocent—"  
"What do you mean, 'innocent'?" Pinny's voice was quiet.  
Alec looked taken aback. "I—Pin—"  
"What he means," said Hodge, "is that it is extremely unusual for a powerful demon, the kind who might command a host of lesser demons, to interest himself in the affairs of human beings. No mundane may summon a demon—they lack that power—but there have been some, desperate and foolish, who have found a witch or warlock to do it for them." "My mother doesn't know any warlocks. She doesn't believe in magic." A thought occurred to Pinny. "Madame Dorothea—she lives downstairs—she's a witch. Maybe the demons were after her and got my mom by mistake?"  
Hodge's eyebrows shot up into his hair. "A witch lives downstairs from you?"  
"She's a hedge-witch—a fake," Alec said. "I already looked into it. There's no reason for any warlock to be interested in her unless he's in the market for nonfunctional crystal balls."  
"And we're back where we began." Hodge reached up to stroke the bird on his shoulder. "It seems the time has come to notify the Clave."  
"No!" Jace said. "We can't—"  
"It made sense to keep Clary's presence here a secret while we were not sure she would recover," Hodge said. "But now she has, and she is the first mundane to pass through the doors of the Institute in over a hundred years. You know the rules about mundane knowledge of Shadowhunters, Jace. The Clave must be informed."  
"She's not a mundane," Alec said quietly.  
Hodge's eyebrows shot back up to his hairline and stayed there. Jace, caught in the middle of a sentence, choked with surprise. In the sudden silence Pinny could hear the sound of Hugo's wings rustling. "But I am," she said.  
"No," said Alec. "You aren't."He whispered annoyed. He turned to Hodge, and Pinny saw the slight movement of his throat as he swallowed. She found this glimpse of his nervousness oddly reassuring. "That night—there were Du'sien demons, dressed like police officers. We had to get past them. Pinny was too weak to run, and there wasn't time to hide—she would have died. So I used my stele—put a mendelin rune on the inside of her arm. I thought—"  
"Are you out of your mind?" Hodge slammed his hand down on top of the desk so hard that Pinny thought the wood might crack. "You know what the Law says about placing Marks on mundanes! You—you of all people ought to know better!"  
"But it worked," said Alec. "Pinny, show them your arm."  
With a baffled glance in Alec's direction, she held out her bare arm. Geez, he truly was pregnant. I mean calling me suspicious and then fucking saying my nickname. Geez. She looked down. Just below the crease of her wrist, she could see three faint overlapping circles, the lines as faint as the memory of a scar that had faded with the passage of years. "See, it's almost gone," Alec said. "It didn't hurt her at all."  
"That's not the point." Hodge could barely control his anger. "You could have turned her into a Forsaken."  
Two bright spots of color burned high up on Alec's cheekbones. "I wanted to know if it was a Shadowhunters family! There were many Circle members who were caught and stripped of their marks. Now we just have to wonder why demons are intrested in an exiled Shadowhunters family who lives as mundanes."  
Clary lowered her arm, feeling suddenly cold. "But that's not possible. I couldn't."  
"You must," Alec said, without looking at her. "If you didn't, that Mark I made on your arm …"  
"That's enough, Alec," said Hodge, the displeasure clear in his voice. "There's no need to frighten her further."  
"But I was right, wasn't I? It explains what happened to her mother, too. If she was a Shadowhunter in exile, she might well have Downworld enemies."  
"My mother wasn't a Shadowhunter!"  
"Your father, then," Jace said. "What about him?"  
Pinny returned his gaze with a flat stare. "He died. Before I was born."  
Jace flinched, almost imperceptibly. It was Alec who spoke. "That's my point," he said certainly. "If her father were a Shadowhunter, and her mother a mundane—well, we all know it's against the Law to marry a mundie. Maybe they were in hiding."  
"My mother would have told me," Pinny said, although she thought of the lack of more than one photo of her father, the way her mother never spoke of him, and knew that it wasn't true.  
"Not necessarily," said Jace. "We all have secrets."  
"Luke," Pinny said. "Our friend. He would know." With the thought of Luke came a flash of guilt and horror. "It's been three days—he must be frantic. Can I call him? Is there a phone?" She turned to Jace. "Please please please please please please please."  
Jace hesitated, looking at Hodge, who nodded and moved aside from the desk. Behind him was a globe, made of beaten brass, that didn't look quite like other globes she had seen; there was something subtly strange about the shape of the countries and continents. Next to the globe was an old-fashioned black telephone with a silver rotary dial. Pinny lifted it to her ear, the familiar dial tone washing over her like soothing water.  
Luke picked up on the third ring. "Hello?"  
"Luke!" She sagged against the desk. "It's me. It's Pinny."  
"Pin Pin." She could hear the relief in his voice, along with something else she couldn't quite identify. "You're all right?"  
"I'm fine," she said. "I'm totally sorry I didn't call you before. Luke, my mom—"  
"I know. The police were here."  
"Haven't you heard from her? Is she truly gone..." Any vestigial hope that her mother had fled the house and hidden somewhere disappeared. There was no way she wouldn't have contacted Luke. "What did the cops say?"  
"Just that she was missing." Pinnyy thought of the policewoman with her skeletal hand, and shivered. "Where are you?"  
"I'm in the city duh. I don't have money remember. Momma still owes my that three hundred bucks," Pinny said. "If you've got some cash, I could finally take a cab to your place—"  
"No," he said shortly.  
The phone slipped in her sweaty hand. She caught it. "What did ya say?"  
"No," he said. "It's too dangerous. You can't come here."  
"We could call—"  
"Look." His voice was hard. "Whatever your mother's gotten herself mixed up in, it's nothing to do with me. You're better off where you are." "But I. Don't. Want. To. Stay. Here." She heard the whine in her voice, like a child's. And also the anger of course. "I don't know these fucking people. You—"  
"I'm not your father, Pinny. I've told you that before."  
Tears burned the backs of her eyes. "But...But...But..."  
"Don't call me for favors again," he said. "I've got my own problems; I don't need to be bothered with yours," he added, and hung up the phone.  
She stood and stared at the receiver, the dial tone buzzing in her ear like a big ugly wasp. She dialed Luke's number again, waited. This time it went to voice mail. She banged the phone down, her hands trembling.  
Jace was leaning against the armrest of Alec's chair, watching her. "I take it he wasn't happy to hear from you?"  
Pinny's heart felt as if it had shrunk down to the size of a walnut: a tiny, hard stone in her chest. I will not cry, she thought. Not in front of these people.  
"I think I'd like to have a talk with Pinynia," said Hodge. "Alone," he added firmly, seeing Jace's expression.  
Alec stood up. "Fine. We'll leave you to it...Good luck Pinny." He said nonchalantly, making Pinny boiling with anger.  
"That's hardly fair," Jace objected. "You want me here, don't you?" he appealed, turning to Pinny.  
Clary looked away, knowing that if she opened her mouth, she'd start to cry. As if from a distance, she heard Alec laugh.  
"Not everyone wants you all the time, Jace," he said.  
"Don't be ridiculous," she heard Jace say, but he sounded disappointed. "Fine, then. We'll be in the weapons room."  
The door closed behind them with a definitive click. Pinny's eyes were stinging the way they did when she tried to hold tears back for too long. Hodge loomed up in front of her, a fussing gray blur. "Sit down," he said. "Here, on the couch."  
She sank gratefully onto the soft cushions. Her cheeks were wet. She reached up to brush the tears away, blinking. "I don't cry much usually," she found herself saying. "It doesn't mean anything. I'll be all right in a minute."  
"Most people don't cry when they're upset or frightened, but rather when they're frustrated. Your frustration is understandable. You've been through a most trying time."  
"Trying?" Pinny wiped her eyes on the hem of Isabelle's shirt. "You could say that."  
Hodge pulled the chair out from behind the desk, dragging it over so that he could sit facing her. His eyes, she saw, were gray, like his hair and tweed coat, but there was kindness in them. "Is there anything I could get for you?" he asked. "Something to drink? Some tea?"  
"I don't want tea," said Pinny, with muffled force. "I want to find my mother. And then I want to find out who took her in the first place, and I want to kill them. I want to tear them to shreds and use them as my wallpaper."  
"Unfortunately," said Hodge, "we're all out of bitter revenge at the moment, so it's either tea or nothing."  
Pinny dropped the hem of the shirt—now spotted all over with wet blotches—and said, "What am I supposed to do, then? O and I only want tea if you got them with berry flavor. I like berries."  
"You could start by telling me a little about what happened. And we got berries," Hodge said, rummaging in his pocket. He produced a handkerchief—crisply folded—and handed it to her. She took it with silent astonishment. She'd never before known anyone who carried a handkerchief. "The demon you saw in your apartment—was that the first such creature you'd ever seen? You had no inkling such creatures existed before?"  
Pinny shook her head, then paused. "One before, but I didn't realize what it was. The first time I saw Alec—"  
"Right, of course, how foolish of me to forget." Hodge nodded. "In Pandemonium. That was the first time?"  
"Yes."  
"And your mother never mentioned them to you—nothing about another world, perhaps, that most people cannot see? Did she seem particularly interested in myths, fairy tales, legends of the fantastic—"  
"No. She hated all that stuff. She even hated Disney movies. She didn't like me reading manga. She said it was childish."  
Hodge scratched his head. His hair didn't move. "Most peculiar," he murmured.  
"Not really," said Pinny. "My mother wasn't peculiar. She was the most insane but sane person in the world. That what I always liked to say you know, You need to be insane to understand sanity."  
"Normal people don't generally find their homes ransacked by demons," Hodge said, not unkindly.  
"Couldn't it have been a mistake?"  
"If it had been a mistake," Hodge said, "and you were an ordinary girl, you would not have seen the demon that attacked you—or if you had, your mind would have processed it as something else entirely: a vicious dog, even another human being. That you could see it, that it spoke to you—"  
"How did you even know it spoke to me? You can't read my mind can you?" She began panicking. O don't think about cute boys, don't think, don't think, don't—  
"Alec reported that you said 'it talked.'"  
YES! MY THOUGHTS ARE SAFE!  
"It hissed." Pinny shivered, remembering. "It talked about wanting to eat me, but I think it wasn't supposed to."  
"Raveners are generally under the control of a stronger demon. They're not very bright or capable on their own," explained Hodge. "Did it say what its master was looking for?"  
Pinny thought. "It said something about a Valentine, but —"  
Hodge jerked upright, so abruptly that Hugo, who had been resting comfortably on his shoulder, launched himself into the air with an irritable caw. "Valentine?"  
"Yes," Pinny said. "I heard the same name in Pandemonium from the boy—I mean, the demon—"  
"It's a name we all know," Hodge said shortly. His voice was steady, but she could see a slight tremble in his hands. Hugo, back on his shoulder, ruffed his feathers uneasily."A demon?"  
"No. Valentine is—was—a Shadowhunter."  
"A Shadowhunter? Why are you talking in the use of past anyway?"  
"Because he's dead," said Hodge flatly. "He's been dead for fifteen years."  
Pinny sank back against the couch cushions. Her head was throbbing. Maybe she should have gone for that tea after all. "Could it be someone else? Someone with the same name? Or a evil ghost whose high and wanted to mess with someone random? "  
Hodge's laugh was a humorless bark. "No. But it could have been someone using his name to send a message." He stood up and paced to his desk, hands locked behind his back. "And this would be the time to do it."  
"Why now?"  
"Because of the Accords."  
"The peace negotiations? I heard that mentioned before. Peace with who?"  
"Downworlders," Hodge murmured. He looked down at Pinny. His mouth was a tight line. "Forgive me," he said. "This must be confusing for you."  
"You think?! And I thought you were the Sherlock of this house...Shit. You're more like Watson. Not the the second."  
He leaned against the desk, stroking Hugo's feathers absently. Ignoring her comment."Downworlders are those who share the Shadow World with us. We have always lived in an uneasy peace with them."  
"Like vampires, werewolves, and …"  
"The Fair Folk," Hodge said. "Faeries. And Lilith's children, being half-demon, are warlocks."  
"So what are you Shadowhunters?"  
"We are sometimes called the Nephilim," said Hodge. "In the Bible they were the offspring of humans and angels. The legend of the origin of Shadowhunters is that they were created more than a thousand years ago, when humans were being overrun by demon invasions from other worlds. A warlock summoned the Angel Raziel, who mixed some of his own blood with the blood of men in a cup, and gave it to those men to drink. Those who drank the Angel's blood became Shadowhunters, as did their children and their children's children. The cup thereafter was known as the Mortal Cup. Though the legend may not be fact, what is true is that through the years, when Shadowhunter ranks were depleted, it was always possible to create more Shadowhunters using the Cup."  
Pinny gaped. Boring.  
"Was always possible?"  
"The Cup is gone," said Hodge. "Destroyed by Valentine, just before he died. He set a great fire and burned himself to death along with his family, his wife, and his child. Scorched the land black. No one will build there still. They say the land is cursed."  
"Is it?"  
"Possibly. The Clave hands down curses on occasion as punishment for breaking the Law. Valentine broke the greatest Law of all—he took up arms against his fellow Shadowhunters and slew them. He and his group, the Circle, killed dozens of their brethren along with hundreds of Downworlders during the last Accords. They were only barely defeated."  
"Why would he want to turn on other Shadowhunters? I mean aren't you guys all tight?"  
"He didn't approve of the Accords. He despised Downworlders and felt that they should be slaughtered, wholesale, to keep this world pure for human beings. Though the Downworlders are not demons, not invaders, he felt they were demonic in nature, and that that was enough. The Clave did not agree—they felt the assistance of Downworlders was necessary if we were ever to drive off demonkind for good. And who could argue, really, that the Fair Folk do not belong in this world, when they have been here longer than we have?"  
"Where those Accords signed?"  
"Yes, they were signed. When the Downworlders saw the Clave turn on Valentine and his Circle in their defense, they realized Shadowhunters were not their enemies. Ironically, with his insurrection Valentine made the Accords possible." Hodge sat down in the chair again. "I apologize; this must be a dull history lesson for you. That was Valentine. A firebrand, a visionary, a man of great personal charm and conviction. And a killer. Now someone is invoking his name …"  
"But who?" Pinny asked. "And what does that bloody woman I call mom have to do with it?"  
Hodge stood up again. "I don't know. But I shall do what I can to find out. I will send messages to the Clave and also to the Silent Brothers. They may wish to speak with you."  
Pinny didn't ask who the Silent Brothers were. She was tired of asking questions whose answers only made her more confused. She stood up. "Is there any chance I could go home?"  
Hodge looked concerned. "No, I—I wouldn't think that would be wise."  
"There are things I need there, even if I'm going to stay here. Clothes—"  
"We can give you money to purchase new clothes."  
"Please," Pinny said. "I have to see if—I have to see what's left."  
Hodge hesitated, then offered a short, inverted nod. "If Alec agrees to it, you may both go." He turned to the desk, rummaging among the papers. He glanced over his shoulder as if realizing she was still there. "He's in the weapons room."  
"I don't know where that is."  
Hodge smiled crookedly. "Church will take you."  
She turned around and said over her shoulder, "But I still want to shop. I need new clothes and special shampoo for curls. Really you should keep more tabs on hairstyles. Your shampoo makes it go frizzy."  
She glanced toward the door where the fat blue Persian was curled up like a small ottoman. He rose as she came forward, fur rippling like liquid. With an imperious meow he led her into the hall. When she looked back over her shoulder, she saw Hodge already scribbling on a piece of paper. Sending a message to the mysterious Clave, she guessed. They didn't sound like very nice people. She wondered what their response would be.  
The red ink looked like blood against the white paper. Frowning, Hodge Starkweather rolled the letter, carefully and meticulously, into the shape of a tube, and whistled for Hugo. The bird, cawing softly, settled on his wrist. Hodge winced. Years ago, in the Uprising, he had sustained a wound to that shoulder, and even as light a weight as Hugo's—or the turn of a season, a change in temperature or humidity, too sudden a movement of his arm—awakened old twinges and the memories of pains better forgotten.  
There were some memories, though, that never faded. Images burst like flashbulbs behind his lids when he closed his eyes. Blood and bodies, trampled earth, a white podium stained with red. The cries of the dying. The green and rolling fields of Idris and its endless blue sky, pierced by the towers of the Glass City. The pain of loss surged up inside him like a wave; he tightened his fist, and Hugo, wings fluttering, pecked angrily at his fingers, drawing blood. Opening his hand, Hodge released the bird, who circled his head as he flew up to the skylight and then vanished.  
Shaking off his sense of foreboding, Hodge reached for another piece of paper, not noticing the scarlet drops that smeared the paper as he wrote.


	6. Chapter 6

6  
FORSAKEN  
The weapons room looked exactly the way it's called "the weapons room" sounded like it would look. Brushed metal walls were hung with every manner of sword, dagger, spike, pike, featherstaff, bayonet, whip, mace, hook, and bow. Soft leather bags filled with arrows dangled from hooks, and there were stacks of boots, leg guards, and gauntlets for wrists and arms. The place smelled of metal and leather and steel polish. Alec and Jace, no longer barefoot, sat at a long table in the center of the room, their heads bent over an object between them. Jace looked up as the door shut behind Pinny. "Where's Hodge?" he said.  
"Writing to the Silent Brothers."  
Alec repressed a shudder. "Ugh."  
She approached the table slowly, conscious of Alec's gaze. "What are you doing?"  
"Putting the last touches on these." Jace moved aside so she could see what lay on the table: three long slim wands of a dully glowing silver. They did not look sharp or particularly dangerous. "Sanvi, Sansanvi, and Semangelaf. They're seraph blades."  
"Those don't look like knives. How did you make them? Magic?"  
Alec looked horrified, as if she'd asked him to put on a tutu and execute a perfect pirouette. "The funny thing about mundies," Jace said, to nobody in particular, "is how obsessed with magic they are for a bunch of people who don't even know what the word means."  
"I know what it means," Pinny snapped.  
"No, you don't, you just think you do. Magic is a dark and elemental force, not just a lot of sparkly wands and crystal balls and talking goldfish."  
"I never said it was a lot of talking goldfish, even though you look like one."  
Jace waved a hand, ignoring her insult. "Just because you call an electric eel a rubber duck doesn't make it a rubber duck, does it? And God help the poor bastard who decides they want to take a bath with the duckie."  
"You're driveling," Pinny observed.  
"I'm not," said Jace, with great dignity.  
"Yes, you are," said Alec, rather unexpectedly. "Look, we don't do magic, okay?" he added, not looking at Pinny. "That's all you need to know about it."  
Clary wanted to snap at him, but restrained herself. Alec didn't seem to like her; there was no point in aggravating his hostility. Which was weird because she would have said the oppisite three days ago. She turned to Alec. "Hodge said I can go home."  
Jace nearly dropped the seraph blade he was holding. "He said what?"  
"To look through my mother's things," she amended. "If you go with me."  
"Alec," Jace exhaled, but Alec ignored him.  
"If you really want to prove that my mom or dad was a Shadowhunter, we should look through my mom's things. What's left of them."  
"Down the rabbit hole." Jace grinned crookedly. "Good idea. If we go right now, we should have another three, four hours of daylight. "Do you want to come with us?" Alec asked, as Pinny and Alec moved toward the door. Pinny glanced back at him. He was half-out of the chair, eyes expectant.  
"Yes, but then again, no, Hodge wanted you two to go and as much as I want to go with you, I have the feeling I would be grounded." Jace didn't turn around.  
"That's all right. I think Pinny and I can handle this on our own."  
The look Alec shot Pinny was as sour as poison. She was glad when the door shut behind her. Now it was all silence.  
Alec led the way down the hall, Clary half-jogging to keep up with his long-legged stride. "Have you got your house keys?"  
Pinny glanced down at her shoes. "Yush."  
"Good."  
"If you say so." The hall widened out into a marble-floored foyer, a black metal gate set into one wall. It was only when Alec pushed a button next to the gate and it lit up that she realized it was an elevator. It creaked and groaned as it rose to meet them. "Alec?"  
"Yeah?"  
"How did you know I had Shadowhunter blood? Was there some way you could tell?"  
The elevator arrived with a final groan. Alec unlatched the gate and slid it open. The inside reminded Clary of a birdcage, all black metal and decorative bits of gilt. "I guessed," he said, latching the door behind them. "It seemed like the most likely explanation."  
"You guessed? You must have been pretty sure, considering you could have killed me."  
He pressed a button in the wall, and the elevator lurched into action with a vibrating groan that she felt all through the bones in her feet. "I was ninety percent sure."  
"I see," Pinny said There must have been something in her voice, because he turned to look at her. Her hand cracked across his face, a slap that rocked him back on his heels. He put his hand to his cheek, more in surprise than pain. "What the hell was that for?"  
"The other ten percent and the fact that you behave as an fucking asshole," she said, and they rode the rest of the way down to the street in silence.  
Alec spent the train ride to Brooklyn wrapped in an angry silence. Clary stuck close to him anyway, feeling not a little bit guilty, when she looked at the red mark her slap had left on his cheek.  
She didn't really mind the silence; it gave her a chance to think. She kept reliving the conversation with Luke, over and over in her head. It hurt to think about, like biting down on a broken tooth, but she couldn't stop doing it.  
Farther down the train, two teenage girls sitting on an orange bench seat were giggling together. The sort of girls Pinny had never liked at St. Xavier's, sporting pink jelly mules and fake tans. Pinny wondered for a moment if they were laughing at her, before she realized with a start of surprise that they were looking at Jace.  
She remembered the girl in the coffee shop who had been staring at Simon. Girls always got that look on their faces when they thought someone was cute. She had nearly forgotten that Alec was cute, given everything that had happened. He didn't have Jace's golden and interesting looks, but Alec's face was more perfect. In daylight his eyes were the color of beautiful blue when the night slowly approached and they were … looking right at her. He cocked an eyebrow. "Can I help you with something?"  
Pinny turned instant traitor against her gender. "Those girls on the other side of the car are staring at you."Alec assumed an air of shyness and seemed to get very uncomfortable. Something she didn't think he would be. "I guess so," he said. "All Nephilim are beautiful or interesting to look at."  
Partly angel, duh! A voice in the back of her head rang.  
Pinny sighed. "How can they see you?"  
"I can't ise glamours around you," Alec confided. He glanced at the girls and blushed, who giggled and hid behind their hair.  
The incident with the girls on the train did seem to put him in a better mood. When they left the station and headed up the hill to Pinny's apartment, he took one of the seraph blades out of his pocket and started flipping it back and forth between his fingers and across his knuckles, humming to himself.  
"I'm sorry I smacked you," she said.  
He stopped humming. "Just be glad I didn't hit you back. Normally I would have, but, today is your lucky day I guess."  
Pinny was kicking an empty soda can out of her path. "What was it that you called Jace? Para-something?"  
"Parabatai," said Alec. "It means a pair of warriors who fight together—who are closer than brothers. Jace is more than just my best friend. My stepfather and his father were parabatai when they were young. My stepfather was his godfather—that's why he live with us. We are his adopted family. Anyway, you said your birthday is in two weeks."  
"Yeah. December 24th."  
"Christmas Eve huh?"  
"U huh, many people forget my birthday because of that."  
"Must suck."  
"Yeah,"she sighed. "This year was going to be special. It's my sixteenth birthday and every girl in the family gets a diamond ring on their birthday. One who is especially made for them. Even if you died and someone else starts waring it, it would never be truly theirs. Mom's ring was gold with a briliant and Mexica pearls. I wonder what I would have got. I guess it's detroyed along with the rest of my house."  
"Sorry,"Alec said, they had arrived at her house, and her heart had started to thump so loudly that she was sure it must be audible for miles. There was a humming in her ears, and the palms of her hands were damp with sweat. She stopped in front of the box hedges, and raised her eyes slowly, expecting to see yellow police tape cordoning off the front door, smashed glass littering the lawn, the whole thing reduced to rubble.  
But there were no signs of destruction. Bathed in pleasant afternoon light, the brownstone seemed to glow. Bees droned lazily around the rosebushes under Madame Dorothea's windows.  
"It looks the same," Pinny said.  
"On the outside." Alec reached into his jeans pocket and drew out another one of the metal and plastic contraptions she'd mistaken for a cell phone.  
"So that's a Sensor? What does it do?" she asked.  
"It picks up demonic frequencies."  
"Demon shortwave?"  
"Something like that." Alec held the Sensor out in front of him as he approached the house. It clicked faintly as they climbed the stairs, then stopped. Alec frowned. "It's picking up trace activity, but that could just be left over from that night. I'm not getting anything strong enough for there to be demons present now."  
Pinny let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Good." She bent to retrieve her keys. When she straightened up, she saw the scratches on the front door. It must have been too dark for her to have seen them last time. They looked like claw marks, long and parallel, raked deeply into the wood.  
Alec touched her arm. "I'll go in first," he said giving her a reassuring look. Pinny wanted to tell him that she didn't need to hide behind him, but the words wouldn't come. She could taste the terror she'd felt when she'd first seen the Ravener. The taste was sharp and coppery on her tongue like old pennies.  
He pushed the door open with one hand, beckoning her after him with the hand that held the Sensor. Once inside the entryway, Pinny blinked, adjusting her eyes to the dimness. The bulb overhead was still out, the skylight too filthy to let in any light, and shadows lay thick across the chipped floor. Madame Dorothea's door was firmly shut. No light showed through the gap under it. Pinny wondered uneasily if anything had happened to her.  
Alec raised his hand and ran it along the banister. It came away wet, streaked with something that looked blackish red in the dim light. "Blood."  
He headed up the stairs, Pinny close behind him. The landing was dark, and she fumbled her keys three times before she managed to slide the right one into the lock. Alec leaned over her, watching bit her lip, feeling his warm,sweet breath. "Don't breathe down my neck," she hissed; her hand was shaking. Finally the tumblers caught, the lock clicking open.  
Alec pulled her back. "I'll go in first Pinny."  
She hesitated, then stepped aside to let him pass. Her palms were sticky, and not from the heat. In fact, it was cool inside the apartment, almost cold—chilly air seeped from the entryway, stinging her skin. She felt goose bumps rising as she followed Alec down the short hallway and into the living room.  
It was empty. Startlingly, entirely empty, the way it had been when they'd first moved in—the walls and floor bare, the furniture gone, even the curtains torn down from the windows. Only faint lighter squares of paint on the wall showed where her mother's paintings had hung. As if in a dream, Clary turned and walked toward the kitchen, Jace pacing her, his light eyes narrowed.  
The kitchen was just as empty, even the refrigerator gone, the chairs, the table. The kitchen cabinets stood open, their bare shelves reminding her of a nursery rhyme. She cleared her throat. "What would demons," she said, "want with our microwave?"  
Alec shook his head, mouth curling under at the corners. "I don't know, but I'm not sensing any demonic presence right now. I'd say they're long gone."  
She glanced around one more time. Someone had cleaned up the spilled Tabasco sauce, she noticed distantly.  
"Are you satisfied?" Alec asked. "There's nothing here."  
She shook her head. "I want to see my room."  
He looked as if he were about to say something, then thought better of it. "Okay," he said, sliding the seraph blade into his pocket.  
The light in the hallway was out, but Pinny didn't need much light to navigate inside her own house. With Alec just behind her, she found the door to her bedroom and reached for the knob. It was cold in her hand—so cold it nearly hurt, like touching an icicle with your bare skin. She saw Alec look at her quickly, but she was already turning the knob, or trying to. It moved slowly, almost stickily, as if the other side of it were embedded in something glutinous and syrupy—  
The door blew outward, knocking her off her feet. She skidded across the hallway floor and slammed into the wall, rolling onto her stomach. There was a dull roaring in her ears as she pulled herself up to her knees.  
Alec, flat against the wall, was fumbling in his pocket, his face a mask of surprise. Looming over him like a giant in a fairy tale was an enormous man, big around as an oak tree, a broad-bladed ax clutched in one gigantic dead-white hand. Tattered filthy rags hung off his grimy skin, and his hair was a single matted tangle, thick with dirt. He stank of poisonous sweat and rotting flesh. Pinny was glad she couldn't see his face—the back of him was bad enough.  
Alec had the seraph blade in his hand. He raised it, calling out: "Sansanvi!"  
A blade shot from the tube. Pinny thought of old movies where bayonets were hidden inside walking sticks, released at the flick of a switch. But she'd never seen a blade like this before: clear as glass, with a glowing hilt, wickedly sharp and nearly as long as Jace's forearm. He struck out, slashing at the gigantic man, who staggered back with a bellow.  
Alec whirled around, racing toward her. He caught her arm, hauling her to her feet, pushing her ahead of him down the hall. She could hear the thing behind them, following; its footsteps sounded like lead weights being dropped onto the floor, but it was coming on fast.  
They sped through the entryway and out onto the landing, Alec whipping around to slam the front door shut. She heard the click of the automatic lock and caught her breath. The door shook on its hinges as a tremendous blow struck against it from inside the apartment. Pinnybacked away to the stairs. Alec glanced at her. His eyes were glowing with worry. "Get out! Go downstairs! Get out of the—"  
Another blow came, and this time the hinges gave way and the door flew outward. It would have knocked Alec over if he hadn't moved so fast that Pinny barely saw it; suddenly he was on the top stair, the blade burning in his hand like a fallen star. She saw Alec look at her and shout something, but she couldn't hear him over the roar of the gigantic creature that burst from the shattered door, making straight for him. She began waiting, so she could help— then its axe was flying, whipping through the air, slicing toward Alec's head. He ducked, and it thunked heavily into the banister, biting deep.  
Alec smiled towards her. It seemed to enrage the creature; abandoning the axe, he lurched at Alec with his enormous fists raised. Alec brought the seraph blade around in an arcing sweep, burying it to the hilt in the giant's shoulder. For a moment the giant stood swaying. Then he lurched forward, his hands outstretched and grasping. Pinny tried to to step in and Alec stepped aside hastily, but not hastily enough: The enormous fists caught hold of him as the giant staggered and fell, dragging Alec in his wake. Alec cried out once; there was a series of heavy and cracking thumps, and then silence.  
Pinny scrambled to her feet and jumped off the stars right on the giant. Alec lay sprawled at the foot of the steps, his arm bent beneath him at an unnatural angle. Across his legs lay the giant, the hilt of Alec's blade protruding from his shoulder. He was not quite dead, but flopping weakly, a bloody froth leaking from his mouth. Pinny could see his face now—it was dead-white and papery, latticed with a black network of horrible scars that almost obliterated his features. His eye sockets were red suppurating pits. Fighting the urge to gag, Pinny fell off the twitching giant, and knelt down next to Alec.  
He was so still. She laid a hand on his shoulder, felt his shirt sticky with blood—his own or the giant's, she couldn't tell. "Alec?"  
His eyes opened. "Is it dead?"  
"Almost," Pinny said grimly.  
"Hell." He winced. "My legs—"  
"Hold still." Crawling around to his head, Pinny slipped her hands under his arms and pulled. He grunted with pain as his legs slipped out from under the creature's spasming carcass. Pinny let go, and he struggled to his feet, his left arm across his chest. She stood up. "Is your arm all right?"  
"No. Broken," he said. "Can you reach into my pocket?"  
She hesitated, nodded. "Which one?"  
"Inside jacket, right side. Take out one of the seraph blades and hand it to me." He held still as she nervously slipped her fingers into his pocket. She was standing so close that she could smell the scent of him, sweat and soap and blood. His breath tickled the back of her neck. It made her lips turn into that weird pouting smile she got when she was well, in a blush a like mood. Her fingers closed on a tube and she drew it out, not looking at him.  
"Thanks," he said. His fingers traced it briefly before he named it: "Sanvi." Like its predecessor, the tube grew into a wicked-looking dagger, its glow illuminating his face. "Don't watch," he said, going to stand over the scarred thing's body. He raised the blade over his head and brought it down. Blood fountained from the giant's throat, splattering Alec's boots.  
She half-expected the giant to vanish, folding in on itself the way the kid in Pandemonium had. But it didn't. The air was full of the smell of blood: heavy and metallic. Alec made a sound low in his throat. He was white-faced, whether with pain or disgust she couldn't tell. "I told you not to watch," he said.  
"I thought it would disappear," she said. "Back to its own dimension—you said."  
"I said that's what happens to demons when they die." Wincing, he shrugged his jacket off his shoulder, baring the upper part of his left arm. "This is not a demon." With his right hand he drew something out of his belt. It was the smooth wand-shaped object he'd used to carve those overlapping circles into Pinny's skin. Looking at it, she felt her forearm begin to burn.  
Alec saw her staring and grinned the ghost of a grin. "This," he said, "is a stele." He touched it to an inked mark just below his shoulder, a curious shape almost like a star. Two arms of the star jutted out from the rest of the mark, unconnected. "And this," he said, "is what happens when Shadowhunters are wounded."  
With the tip of the stele, he traced a line connecting the two arms of the star. When he lowered his hand, the mark was shining as if it had been etched with phosphorescent ink. As Alec watched, it sank into his skin, like a weighted object sinking into water. It left behind a ghostly reminder: a pale, thin scar, almost invisible.  
An image rose in Pinny's mind. Her mother's back, not quite covered by her bathing suit top, the blades of her shoulders and curves of her spine dappled with narrow, white marks. It was like something she had seen in a dream—her mother's back didn't really look like that, she knew. But the image nagged at her.  
Alec let out a sigh, the tense look of pain leaving his face. He moved the arm, slowly at first, then more easily, lifting it up and down, clenching his fist. Clearly it was no longer broken.  
"That's awesome," Pinny said. "How did you—?"  
"That was an iratze—a healing rune," Alec said. "Finishing the rune with the stele activates it." He shoved the slim wand into his belt and shrugged his jacket back on. "We're going to have to report this to Hodge," he said. Alec, Pinny thought, was the sort of person who didn't liked it when things were happening, things that were bad. While Jace seemed the opposite. How are those two so close then?  
" I get that that thing isn't a demon—that's why the Sensor didn't register it, right?"  
Alec nodded. "You see the scars all over its face?"  
"Yes."  
"Those were made with a stele. Like this one." He tapped the wand in his belt. "You asked me what happens when you carve Marks onto someone who doesn't have Shadowhunter blood. Just one Mark will only burn you, but a lot of Marks, powerful ones? Carved into the flesh of a totally ordinary human being with no trace of Shadowhunter ancestry? You get this." He jerked his chin at the corpse. "The runes are agonizingly painful. The Marked ones go insane—the pain drives them out of their minds. They become fierce, mindless killers. They don't sleep or eat unless you make them, and they die, usually quickly. Runes have great power and can be used to do great good—but they can be used for evil. The Forsaken are evil."  
Pinny stared at him in horror. "But why would anyone do that to themselves?"  
"Nobody would. It's something that gets done to them. By a warlock, maybe, some Downworlder gone bad. The Forsaken are loyal to the one who Marked them, and they're fierce killers. They can obey simple commands, too. It's like having a—a slave army." He stepped over the dead Forsaken, and glanced over his shoulder at her. "I'm going back upstairs."  
"But there's nothing there."  
"There might be more of them," he said, almost as if he were hoping there would be. "You should wait here." He started up the steps.  
"I wouldn't do that if I were you," said a shrill and familiar voice. "There are more of them where the first one came from."  
Alec, who was nearly at the top of the stairs, spun and stared. So did Pinny, although she knew immediately who had spoken. That gravelly accent was unmistakable.  
"Madame Dorothea?"The old woman inclined her head regally. She stood in the doorway of her apartment, dressed in what looked like a tent made of raw purple silk. Gold chains glittered on her wrists and roped her throat. Her long badger-striped hair straggled from the bun pinned to the top of her head.  
Alec was still staring. "But …"  
"More what?" Clary said.  
"More Forsaken," replied Dorothea with a cheerfulness that, Pinny felt, didn't really fit the circumstances. She glanced around the entryway. "You have made a mess, haven't you? I'm sure you weren't planning on cleaning up either. Typical."  
"But you're a mundie," Alec said, angrily.  
"So observant," said Dorothea, her eyes gleaming. "The Clave really broke the mold with you."  
The bewilderment on Alec's face was full of anger. "You know about the Clave?" he demanded. "You knew about them, and you knew there were Forsaken in this house, and you didn't notify them? Just the existence of Forsaken is a crime against the Covenant—"  
"Neither Clave nor Covenant have ever done anything for me," said Madame Dorothea, her eyes flashing angrily. "I owe them nothing." For a moment her gravelly New York accent vanished, replaced with something else, a thicker, deeper accent that Pinny didn't recognize.  
"Alec, stop," Pinnysaid. She turned to Madame Dorothea. "If you know about the Clave and the Forsaken," she said, "then mayhap you know what happened to my mother?"  
Dorothea shook her head, her earrings swinging. There was something like pity on her face. "My advice to you," she said, "is to forget about your mother. She's gone."  
The floor under Pinny seemed to tilt. "You mean she's dead?" "No." Dorothea spoke the word almost reluctantly. "I'm sure she's still alive. For now."  
"Then I have to find her old hag," Pinny said. The world had stopped tilting; Alec was standing behind her, his hand on her elbow as if to brace her, but she barely noticed. "You understand? I have to find her before—"  
Madame Dorothea held up a hand. "I don't want to involve myself in Shadowhunter business."  
"But you knew my mother. She was your freaking neighbor—"  
"This is an official Clave investigation." Alec cut her off. "I can always come back with the Silent Brothers." He said the last sentence in the same sing song voice little children always used to say to another 'uh oh you're in trouble'  
"Oh, for the—" Dorothea glanced at her door, then at Alec and Pinny. "I suppose you might as well come in," she said, finally. "I'll tell you what I can." She started toward the door, then halted on the threshold, glaring. "But if you tell anyone I helped you, Shadowhunter, you'll wake up tomorrow with snakes for hair and an extra pair of arms."  
"Please don't," Alec said.  
Dorothea smiled at him, not without malice.  
"Yikes," said Alec mildly looking at the so called 'old hag'.  
"Yikes is right, Alexander Gideon Lightwood." Dorothea marched into the apartment, her purple tent flying around her like a gaudy flag.  
Pinny looked at Alec. "Gideon?"  
"It's my middle name." Alec looked shaken. "I can't say I like that she knows it."  
Pinny glanced after Dorothea. The lights were on inside the apartment; already the heavy smell of incense was flooding the entryway, mixing unpleasantly with the stench of blood. "Still, I think we might as well try talking to her. What have we got to lose?"  
"Once you've spent a bit more time in our world,"Alec said, "you won't ask that again."


	7. Chapter 7

7  
THE FIVE-DIMENSIONAL DOOR  
Madame Dorothea's apartement seemed to have roughly the same layout as Pinny's, though she'd made a very different use of the space. The entryway, reeking of incense, was hung with bead curtains and astrological posters. One showed the constellations of the zodiac, another a guide to Chinese magical symbols, and another showed a hand with fingers spread, each line on the palm carefully labeled. Above the hand Latinate script spelled out the words In Manibus Fortuna. Narrow shelves holding stacked books ran along the wall beside the door.  
One of the bead curtains rattled, and Madame Dorothea poked her head through. "Interested in chiromancy?" she said, noting Pinny's gaze. "Or just nosy?"  
"Neither," Clary said. "Can you really tell fortunes?"  
"My mother had a great talent. She could see a man's future in his hand or the leaves at the bottom of his teacup. She taught me some of her tricks." She transferred her gaze to Jace. "Speaking of tea, young man, would you like some?"  
"What did you say?" Alec said, looking flustered.  
"Tea. I find it both settles the stomach and concentrates the mind. Wonderful drink, tea."  
"I'll have tea," Pinny said, realizing how long it had been since she had eaten or drunk anything. She felt as if she'd been running on pure adrenaline since she woke up.  
Alec succumbed. "All right. As long as it isn't whipe cream flavor," he added, wrinkling his fine-boned nose. "I hate that."  
Madame Dorothea cackled loudly and disappeared back through the bead curtain, leaving it swaying gently behind her.  
Pinny giggled and raised her eyebrows at Jace. "You hate whipe cream flavor?"  
Alec had wandered over to the narrow bookcase and was examining its contents. "You have a problem with that?"  
"You may be the only guy my age I've ever met who knows that that stuff. I have to admit it's not my fav either."  
"Yes, well," Alec said, with a shy look, "I'm not like other guys. Besides," he added, flipping a book off the shelf, "With Izzy around, strange flavors are required."  
"Really?" Pinny giggled some more  
Alec flipped a page. "Yes, I should warn you actually. Do not under any circumstances eat her cooking."  
Pinny, who had been studying the palmistry poster, whirled on him. "Thank you for the message, my kind lord."  
He glanced up, surprised. "How did you just called me?"  
She turned back to the poster, grinning. "My kind lord.""O," Alec said, and she could tell from his voice that he was a total tomato. She heard him drop the book back onto the shelf. "This must be the mundie books she keeps up front to impress mundie's," he said, sounding disgusted. "There's not one serious text here."  
"Just because it's not the kind of magic you do—" Pinny began crossly.  
He scowled furiously, silencing her. "I do not do magic," he said. "Get it through your head: Human beings are not magic users. It's part of what makes them human. Witches and warlocks can only use magic because they have demon blood."  
Pinny took a moment to process this. "But I've seen you use magic. You use enchanted weapons—"  
"I use tools that are magical. And just to be able to do that, I have to undergo rigorous training. The rune tattoos on my skin protect me too. If you tried to use one of the seraph blades, for instance, it'd probably burn your skin, maybe kill you."  
"What if I got the tattoos?" Pinnyasked. "Could I use them then?"  
"No," Alec said crossly. "The Marks are only part of it. You have to train yourself."  
"Well, there goes my plan for selling them all on eBay to a bunch of monkeys," Pinny muttered.  
"Selling them on what?"  
Pinny smiled evilly at him. "A mythical place of great magical power."  
Alec looked confused, then shrugged. "Most myths are true, at least in part."  
"I'm starting to get that."  
The bead curtain rattled again, and Madame Dorothea's head appeared. "Tea's on the table," she said. "There's no need for you two to keep standing there like donkeys. Come into the parlor."There's a parlor?" Pinny said.  
"Of course there's a parlor," said Dorothea. "Where else would I entertain?"  
"Entertain?" asked Alec.  
Madame Dorothea shot him a look. "The mundanes, I entertain with the so called non serious stuff." She disappeared back through the curtain, her loud "Hmph!" nearly drowned out by rattling beads.  
Alec frowned. "I'm not quite sure how she knows all that."  
"Come on," said Pinny. "Let's follow the hag." She marched through the bead curtain before he could reply.  
The parlor was so dimly lit that it took several blinks for Pinny's eyes to adjust. Faint light outlined the black velvet curtains drawn across the entire left wall. Stuffed birds and bats dangled from the ceiling on thin cords, shiny dark beads where their eyes should have been. The floor was layered with frayed Persian rugs that spit up puffs of dust underfoot. A group of overstuffed pink armchairs were gathered around a low table: A stack of tarot cards bound with a silk ribbon occupied one end of the table, a crystal ball on a gold stand the other. In the middle of the table was a silver tea service, laid out for company: a neat plate of stacked sandwiches, a blue teapot unfurling a thin stream of white smoke, and two teacups on matching saucers set carefully in front of two of the armchairs.  
"Wow," Pinny said weakly. "This looks great." She took a seat in one of the armchairs. It felt good to sit down.  
Dorothea smiled, her eyes glinting with a sly humor. "Have some tea," she said, hefting the pot. "Milk? Sugar?"Pinny looked sideways at Alec, who was sitting beside her and who had taken possession of the sandwich plate. He was examining it closely. "at least seven cubes of sugar," she said.  
Everyone was staring at her.  
"WHAT?! I like sugar okay ad besides, seven is the magic number. Even though the celtics thought it was three but that is just way to less for my tea."  
Alec grinned and shrugged, took a sandwich, and set the plate down. Pinny watched him warily as he bit into it. He shrugged again. "I don't like what's on it," he said, in response to her stare.  
"I always think sandwiches are just the thing for tea, don't you?" Madame Dorothea inquired, of no one in particular.  
"I hate them normally," Jace said, and handed the rest of his sandwich to Pinny. She bit into it—it was seasoned with an amount of mayonnaise and pepper. Her stomachmade her want to gag even thought it was the first food she'd tasted since the nachos she'd eaten with Simon.  
"Sandwiches and tea with whipe cream taste," Pinny said. "Is there anything else you hate that I ought to know about?"  
Alec looked at Dorothea over the rim of his teacup. "Suspicious people," he said.  
Calmly the old woman set her teapot down. "You can call me a liar all you like. It's true, I'm not a witch. But my mother was."  
Alec choked on his tea. "That's impossible."  
"Why impossible?" Pinny asked curiously. She took a sip of her tea. It was bitter, strongly flavored with a peaty smokiness.  
Alecexpelled a breath. "Because they're half-human, half-demon. They are crossbreeds. So they are sterile."  
"Like mules," Pinny said thoughtfully, remembering something from biology class. "Mules are sterile crossbreeds."  
"Yes," said Alec. "All Downworlders are in some part demon,but only warlocks are the children of demon parents. It's why their powers are the strongest."  
"Vampires and werewolves—they're part demon too? And faeries?"  
"Vampires and werewolves are the result of diseases brought by demons from their home dimensions. Most demon diseases are deadly to humans, but in these cases they worked strange changes on the infected, without actually killing them. And faeries—"  
"Faeries are fallen angels," said Dorothea, "cast down out of heaven for their pride."  
"That's the legend," Alec said. "It's also said that they're the offspring of demons and angels, which is the theory me and Jace always liked to believe. Good and evil, mixing together. Faeries are as beautiful as angels are supposed to be, but they have a lot of mischief and cruelty in them. And you'll notice most of them avoid midday sunlight—"  
"For the devil has no power," said Dorothea softly, as if she were reciting an old rhyme, "except in the dark."  
Alec nodded. Pinny said, "'Supposed to be'? You mean angels don't—"  
"Enough about angels," said Dorothea, suddenly practical. "It's true that warlocks can't have children. My mother adopted me because she wanted to make sure there'd be someone to attend this place after she was gone. I don't have to master magic myself. I have only to watch and guard."  
"Guard ehm what?" asked Pinny.  
"What indeed?" With a wink the older woman reached for a sandwich from the plate, but it was empty. Pinny had eaten them all, despite the gagging she had been way too hungry. Dorothea chuckled. "It's good to see a young woman eat her fill. In my day, girls were robust, strapping creatures, not twigs like they are nowadays.""Thanks," Pinny said. She thought of Isabelle's tiny waist and felt suddenly gigantic. She set her empty teacup down with a clatter.  
Instantly, Madame Dorothea pounced on the cup and stared into it intently, a line appearing between her penciled eyebrows.  
"What?" Pinny said nervously. "Did I crack the cup or something?"  
"She's reading your tea leaves," Alec said, sounding calm, but he leaned forward along with Pinny as Dorothea turned the cup around and around in her thick fingers, scowling.  
"Is it bad?" Pinny asked.  
"It is neither bad nor good. It is confusing." Dorothea looked at Alec. "Give me your cup," she commanded.  
Alec looked affronted. "But I'm not done with my—"  
The old woman snatched the cup out of his hand and splashed the excess tea back into the pot. Frowning, she gazed at what remained. "I see violence in your future, a great deal of blood shed by you and others. You'll fall in love with the wrong person. Also, you have an enemy."  
"Only one? That's good news." Alec leaned back in his chair as Dorothea put down his cup and picked up Pinny's again. She shook her head.  
"There is nothing for me to read here. The images are jumbled, meaningless." She glanced at Pinny. "Is there a block in your mind?"  
Pinny was puzzled. "A what?"  
"Like a spell that might conceal a memory, or might have blocked out your Sight."  
Pinny shook her head. "No, of course not idiot." Alec leaned forward alertly. "Don't be so hasty," he said. "It's true that she claims not to remember ever having had the Sight before this week. Maybe—"  
"Maybe I'm just a late developer," Pinny snapped. "And don't leer at me, just because I said that."  
Alec assumed an injured air. "I wasn't going to my sweet lady."  
"What the fuck." She laughed.  
"You can call me lord, then I am supposed to call you milady aren't I," Alec acknowledged, "but get back to the point. It doesn't mean I'm not right. Something's blocking your memories, I'm almost sure of it."  
"Very well, let's try something else." Dorothea put the cup down, and reached for the silk-wrapped tarot cards. She fanned the cards and held them out to Pinny. "Slide your hand over these until you touch one that feels hot or cold, or seems to cling to your fingers. Then draw that one and show it to me."  
Obediently Pinny ran her fingers over the cards. They felt cool to the touch, and slippery, but none seemed particularly warm or cold, and none stuck to her fingers. Finally she selected one at random, and held it up.  
"The Ace of Cups," Dorothea said, sounding bemused. "The love card."  
Pinny turned it over and looked at it. The card was heavy in her hand, the image on the front thick with real paint. It showed a hand holding up a cup in front of a rayed sun painted with gilt. The cup was made of gold, engraved with a pattern of smaller suns and studded with rubies. The style of the artwork was as familiar to her as her own breath. "This is a good card, right?"  
"Not necessarily. The most terrible things men do, they do in the name of love," said Madame Dorothea, her eyes gleaming. "But it is a powerful card. What does it mean to you?"  
"That my mother painted it," said Pinny, and dropped the card onto the table. "She did, didn't she?"orothea nodded, a look of pleased satisfaction on her face. "She painted the whole pack. A gift for me."  
"So you say." Alec stood up, his eyes narrowed. "How well did you know Pinynia's mother?"  
Pinny craned her head to look up at him. "Alec, don't—"  
Dorothea sat back in her chair, the cards fanned out across her wide chest. "Pearl knew what I was, and I knew what she was. We didn't talk about it much. Sometimes she did favors for me—like painting this pack of cards—and in return I'd tell her the occasional piece of Downworld gossip. There was a name she asked me to keep an ear out for, and I did."  
Alec's expression was unreadable. "What name was that?"  
"Valentine."  
Pinny sat straight up in her chair. "But that's—"  
"And when you say you knew what Pearl was, what do you mean? What was she?" Alec asked.  
"Pearl was what she was," said Dorothea. "But in her past she'd been like you. A Shadowhunter. One of the Clave."  
"No," Pinny whispered.  
Dorothea looked at her with sad, almost kindly eyes. "It's true. She chose to live in this house precisely because—"  
"Because this is a Sanctuary," Alec said to Dorothea. "Isn't it? Your mother was a Control. She made this space, hidden, protected—it's a perfect spot for Downworlders on the run to hide out. That's what you do, isn't it? You hide criminals here."  
"You would call them that," Dorothea said. "You're familiar with the motto of the Covenant?"  
"Sed lex dura lex," said Alec automatically. "'The Law is hard, but it is the Law.'""Sometimes the Law is too hard. I know the Clave would have taken me away from my mother if they could. You want me to let them do the same to others?"  
"I get it. I am sorry, I guess it is to hard sometimes."  
Dorothea grinned, wide enough to show a flash of gold molars.  
Alec looked unmoved by the flattery. "I am not going to tell the Clave—"  
"Thank you!" Pinny was on her feet now. "You are actually quite kind, once you are not PMS-ing."  
"PMS-ing?" Alec looked mutinous. He strode to the wall and tore aside one of the velvet hangings. "Is this what I think it is?" he demanded.  
"It's a door, Alec," said Pinny. It was a door, set strangely in the wall between the two bay windows. Clearly it couldn't be a door that led anywhere, or it would have been visible from the outside of the house. It looked as if it were made of some softly glowing metal, more buttery than brass but as heavy as iron. The knob had been cast in the shape of an eye.  
"Shut up," Aled said angrily. "It's a Portal. Isn't it?"  
"It's a five-dimensional door," said Dorothea, laying the tarot cards back on the table. "Dimensions aren't all straight lines, you know," she added, in response to Pinny's blank look. "There are dips and folds and nooks and crannies all tucked away. It's a bit hard to explain when you've never studied dimensional theory, but, in essence, that door can take you anywhere in this dimension that you want to go. It's—"An escape hatch," Alec said. "That's why your mother wanted to live here. So she could always flee at a moment's notice."  
"Then why didn't she—" Pinny began, and broke off, suddenly horrified. "Because of me," she said. "She wouldn't leave without me that night. So she stayed."  
Alec was looked her deep in her eyes. "Don't blame yourself."  
Feeling tears gather under her eyelids, Pinny pushed past Alec to the door. "I want to see it," she said, reaching for the door. "I want to see where she was going to escape to—"  
"Pinny, no!" Alec reached for her, but her fingers had already closed around the knob. It spun rapidly under her hand, the door flying open as if she'd pushed it. Dorothea lumbered to her feet with a cry, but it was too late. Before she could even finish her sentence, Pinny found herself flung forward and tumbling through empty space,Alec tightly helding her hand as they were falling.


	8. Chapter 8

8  
WEAPON OF CHOICE  
She was too suprised to scream. The sensation of falling was the worst part; her heart flew up into her throat and her stomach turned to water. She flung her hands out, trying to catch at something, anything, that might slow her descent.  
Her hands closed on branches. Leaves tore off in her grip. She thumped to the ground, hard, her hip and shoulder striking packed earth. She rolled over, sucking the air back into her lungs. She was just beginning to sit up when someone landed on top of her.  
She was knocked backward. A forehead banged against hers, her knees banging against someone else's. Tangled up in arms and legs, Pinny coughed hair—not her own—out of her mouth and tried to struggle out from under the weight that felt like it was crushing her flat.  
"Ouch," Alec said in her ear, his tone indignant. "You elbowed me."  
"Well, you landed on me."  
He levered himself up on his arms and looked down at her placidly. Pinny could see blue sky above his head, a bit of tree branch, and the corner of a gray clapboard house. "Well, you didn't leave me much choice, did you?" he asked. "Not after you decided to leap trough the portal."  
"You didn't have to come after me."  
"Yes, I did," he said. "You're far too inexperienced to protect yourself in a hostile situation without me."  
"That's sweet. Maybe I'll forgive you."  
"Forgive me? For what?"  
"For telling me to shut up."  
His eyes narrowed. "I did not … Well, I did, but you were—"  
"Never mind." Her arm, pinned under her back, was beginning to cramp. Rolling to the side to free it, she saw the brown grass of a dead lawn, a chain-link fence, and more of the gray clapboard house, now distressingly familiar.  
She froze. "I know where we are."  
Alec stopped spluttering. "What?"  
"This is Luke's house." She sat up, pitching Alec to the side. He rolled gracefully to his feet and held out a hand to help her up. She ignored him and scrambled upright, shaking out her numb arm.  
They stood in front of a small gray row house, nestled among the other row houses that lined the Williamsburg waterfront. A breeze blew off the East River, setting a small sign swinging over the brick front steps. Pinny watched Alec as he read the block-lettered words aloud: "GARROWAY BOOKS. FINE USED, NEW, AND OUT OF PRINT. CLOSED SATURDAYS." He glanced at the dark front door, its knob wound with a heavy padlock. A few days' worth of mail lay on the doormat, untouched. He glanced at Pinny. "He lives in a bookstore?"  
"He lives behind the store." Pinny glanced up and down the empty street, which was bordered on one end by the arched span of the Williamsburg Bridge, and by a deserted sugar factory on the other. Across the sluggishly moving river the sun was setting behind the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan, outlining them in gold. "Alec, how did we get here?"  
"Through the Portal," Alec said, examining the padlock. "It takes you to whatever place you're thinking of."  
"But I wasn't thinking of here," Pinny objected. "I wasn't thinking of anywhere."  
"You must have been." He dropped the subject, seeming uninterested. "So, since we're here anyway …"  
"Yeah?"  
"What do you want to do?"  
"Leave, I guess," Pinny said bitterly. "Luke told me not to come here."  
Alec shook his head. "And you just accept that?"  
Pinny hugged her arms around herself. Despite the fading heat of the day, she felt cold. "Do I have a choice?" Before she even knew it, Alec had wrapped his left arm around her waist and pulled her close.  
"We always have choices," Alec said. "If I were you, I'd be pretty curious. Do you want to go in?"  
Pinny shook her head. "No, but sometimes you just have to, and since the backdoor is probably open..." She pointed to the narrow alley between Luke's row house and the next. Plastic trash cans were propped in a neat row beside stacks of folded newspapers and a plastic tub of empty soda bottles. At least Luke was still a responsible recycler.  
"You sure he isn't home?" Alec asked.  
She glanced at the empty curb. "Well, his truck's gone, the store's closed, and all the lights are off. I'd say probably not."  
"Then lead the way." He still held her close as they walked. His hand covered hers and they both were a bit red but there was something nice to the gesture. Something safe. It made butterfly's go up and down, making her heart jump and perform salto's even Epke Zonderland couldn't do on that gymnastic stick thingy.  
The narrow aisle between the row houses ended in a high chain-link fence. It surrounded Luke's small back garden, where the only plants flourishingseemed to be the weeds that had sprung up through the paving stones, cracking them into powdery shards.  
"Up and over'," Alec said, jamming the toe of a boot into a gap in the fence. He began to climb. The fence rattled so loudly that Pinny glanced around nervously, but there were no lights on in the neighbors' house. Alec cleared the top of the fence and sprang down the other side, landing in the bushes to the accompaniment of an earsplitting yowl.  
For a moment Pinny thought he must have landed on a stray cat. She heard Alec shout in surprise as he fell backward. A dark shadow—much too big to be feline—exploded out of the shrubbery and streaked across the yard, keeping low. Rolling to his feet, Alec darted after it, looking worried.  
Pinny started to climb. As she threw her leg over the top of the fence, Isabelle's jeans caught on a twist of wire and tore up the side. She dropped to the ground, shoes scuffing the soft dirt, just as Alec cried out in triumph. "Got him!" Pinny turned to see Alec sitting on top of the prone intruder, whose arms were up over his head. Alec grabbed for his wrist. "Come on, let's see your face—"  
"Get the hell off me, you pretentious asshole," the intruder snarled, shoving at Alec. He struggled halfway into a sitting position, his battered glasses knocked askew.  
Pinny stopped dead in her tracks. "Simon?"  
"Oh, God," said Alec, sounding resigned. "And I actually thought I got hold of something dangerous."  
"But what were you doing hiding in Luke's bushes?" Pinny asked, brushing leaves out of Simon's hair. He suffered her ministrations with glaring bad grace. Somehow when she'd pictured her reunion with Simon, when all this was over, he'd been in a better mood. "That's the part I don't get.""All right, that's enough. I can fix my own hair, Black," Simon said, jerking away from her touch. They were sitting on the steps of Luke's back porch. Alec had propped himself on the porch railing and was assiduously pretending to ignore them, while using the stele to file the edges of his fingernails. Pinny wondered if the Clave would approve.  
"I mean, did Luke know you were there?" she asked.  
"Of course he didn't know I was there," Simon said irritably. "I've never asked him, but I'm sure he has a fairly stringent policy about random teenagers lurking in his shrubbery."  
"You're not random; he knows you, you goddamned fool." She wanted to reach out and touch his cheek, still bleeding slightly where a branch had scratched it. "The main thing is that you're all right."  
"That I'm all right?" Simon laughed, a sharp, unhappy sound. "Pinny, do you have any idea what I've been through this past couple of days? The last time I saw you, you were running out of Java Jones like a bat out of hell, and then you just … disappeared. You never picked up your cell—then your home phone was disconnected—then Luke told me you were off staying with some relatives upstate when I know you don't have any other relatives. I thought I'd done something to piss you off."  
"What could you possibly have done?" Pinny reached for his hand, but he pulled it back without looking at her.  
"I don't know," he said. "Something."  
Alec, still occupied with the stele, chuckled low under his breath.  
"You're my best friend," Pinny said. "I wasn't mad at you."  
"Yeah, well, you clearly also couldn't be bothered to call me and tell me you were shacking up with some dyed-black haired wannabe goth you probably met at Pandemonium," Simon pointed out sourly. "After I spent the past three days wondering if you were dead."  
"I was not shacking up," Pinny said, glad of the darkness as the blood rushed to her face, gosh why did it had to be Alec fro Christ sake?! Why couldn't Hodge just have appointed Jace, he is not cute at all. Some may think so but he is definitely not my type and Simon knows that. WHY ALECXANDER GIDEON LIGHTWOOD?!WHY WHY WHY?!  
"My hair is natural," said Aled, looking furious.  
"So what have you been doing these past three days, then?" Simon said, his eyes dark with suspicion. "Do you really have a great-aunt Matilda who contracted avian flu and needed to be nursed back to health?"  
"Did Luke actually say that? Alright that is juts crap."  
"No. He just said you had gone to visit a sick relative, and that your phone probably just didn't work out in the country. Not that I believed him. It's indeed enormous crap. After he shooed me off his front porch, I went around the side of the house and looked in the back window. Watched him packing up a green duffel bag like he was going away for the weekend. That was when I decided to stick around and keep an eye on things."  
"Why? Because he was packing a bag?"  
"He was packing it full of weapons," Simon said, scrubbing at the blood on his cheek with the sleeve of his T-shirt. "Knives, a couple daggers, even a sword. Funny thing is, some of the weapons looked like they were glowing." He looked from Pinny to Alec, and back again. His tone was edged as sharply as one of Luke's knives. "Now, are you going to say I was imagining it?"  
"No," Pinny said. "I'm not going to say that." She glanced at Alec. The last light of sunset struck white gold sparks from his eyes, like shining stars. She said, "I'm going to tell him the truth."  
"I know."  
"Are you going to try to stop me?"He looked down at the stele in his hand. "My oath to the Covenant binds me," he said. "No such oath binds you."  
She turned back to Simon, taking a deep breath. "All right," she said. "Here's what you have to know."  
The sun had slipped entirely past the horizon, and the porch was in darkness by the time Pinny stopped speaking. Simon had listened to her lengthy explanation with a nearly impassive expression, only wincing a little when she got to the part about the Ravener demon. When she was done speaking, she cleared her dry throat, suddenly dying for a glass of water. "So," she said, "any questions?"  
Simon held up his hand. "Oh, I've got questions. Several."  
Pinny exhaled warily. "Okay, shoot."  
He pointed at Alec. "Now, he's a—what do you call people like him again?"  
"He's a Shadowhunter," Pinny said.  
"A demon hunter," Jace clarified.  
Simon looked at Pinny again. "For real?" His eyes were narrowed, as if he half-expected her to tell him that none of it was true and Alec was actually a dangerous escaped lunatic she'd decided to befriend on humanitarian grounds.  
"For real."  
There was an intent look on Simon's face. "And there are vampires, too? Werewolves, warlocks, all that stuff?"  
Pinny gnawed her lower lip. "So I hear."  
"And you kill them, too?" Simon asked, directing the question to Alec, who had put the stele back in his pocket and was examining his flawless nails for defects."Only when are a threat to humanity."  
For a moment Simon merely sat and stared down at his feet. Pinny wondered if burdening him with this kind of information had been the wrong thing to do. He had a stronger practical streak than almost anyone else she knew; he might hate knowing something like this, something for which there was no logical explanation. She leaned forward anxiously, just as Simon lifted his head. "That is so awesome," he said.  
Alec looked as startled as Clary felt. "Awesome?"  
Simon nodded enthusiastically enough to make the dark curls bounce on his forehead. "Totally. It's like Dungeons and Dragons, but real."  
Alec was looking at Simon as if he were some bizarre species of insect. "It's like what?"  
"It's a game," Pinny explained. She felt vaguely embarrassed. "People pretend to be wizards and elves, and they kill monsters and stuff."  
Alec looked stupefied.  
Simon grinned. "You've never heard of Dungeons and Dragons?"  
"I've heard of dungeons," Alec said. "Also dragons. Although they're mostly extinct."  
Simon looked disappointed. "You've never killed a dragon?"  
"He's probably never met a six-foot-tall hot elf-woman in a fur bikini, either," Clary said irritably. "Lay off, Simon."  
"Real elves are about eight inches tall," Alec pointed out. "And they bite."  
"But vampires are hot, right?" Simon said. "I mean, some of the vampires are babes, aren't they?"  
Pinny worried for a moment that Alec might lunge across the porch and throttle Simon senseless. Instead, he considered the question. "Some.""Awesome," Simon repeated. Pinny decided she had preferred it when they were fighting.  
Alec slid off the porch railing. "So are we going to search the house, or not?"  
Simon scrambled to his feet. "I'm game. What are we looking for?"  
"We?" said Alec, with a sinister delicacy. "I don't remember inviting you along."  
"Alec," Clary said angrily.  
The left corner of his mouth curled up. "Just joking." He stepped aside to leave her a clear path to the door. "Shall we?"  
Pinny fumbled for the doorknob in the dark. It opened, triggering the porch light, which illuminated the entryway. The door that led into the bookstore was closed; Pinny jiggled the knob. "It's locked."  
"Allow me, mundanes," said Alec, setting her gently aside. He took his stele out of his pocket and put it to the door. Simon watched him with some resentment. No amount of vampire babes, Pinny suspected, was ever going to make him like Alec.  
"He's a piece of work, isn't he?" Simon muttered. "How do you stand him?"  
"He saved my fucking life Simon."  
Simon glanced at her quickly. "How—"  
With a click the door swung open. "Here we go," said Alec, sliding his stele back into his pocket. Pinny saw the Mark on the door—just over his head—fade as they passed through it. The back door opened onto a small storage room, the bare walls peeling paint. Cardboard boxes were stacked everywhere, their contents identified with marker scrawls: FICTION, POETRY, COOKING, LOCAL INTEREST, ROMANCE.  
"The apartment's through there." Pinny headed toward the door she'd indicated, at the far end of the room.  
Alec caught her arm. "Wait."She looked at him nervously. "Is something wrong?"  
"I don't know." He edged between two narrow stacks of boxes, and whistled. "Pinynia, you might want to come over here and see this."  
She glanced around. It was dim in the storage room, the only illumination the porch light shining through the window. "It's so dark—"  
Light flared up, bathing the room in a brilliant glow. Simon turned his head aside, blinking. "Ouch."  
Alec chuckled. He was standing on top of a sealed box, his hand raised. Something glowed in his palm, the light escaping through his cupped fingers. "Witchlight," he said.  
Simon muttered something under his breath. Pinny was already clambering through the boxes, pushing a way to Alec. He was standing behind a teetering pile of mysteries, the witchlight casting an eerie glow over his face. "Look at that," he said, indicating a space higher up on the wall.  
At first she thought he was pointing at what looked like a pair of ornamental sconces. As her eyes adjusted, she realized they were actually loops of metal attached to short chains, the ends of which were sunk into the wall. "Are those—"  
"Manacles," said Simon, picking his way through the boxes. "That's, ah …"  
"Don't say 'kinky.'" Pinny shot him a warning look. "This is Luke we're talking about kay."  
Alec reached up to run his hand along the inside of one of the metal loops. When he lowered it, his fingers were dusted with red-brown powder. "Blood. And look." He pointed to the wall right around where the chains were sunk in; the plaster seemed to bulge outward. "Someone tried to yank these things out of the wall. Tried pretty hard, from the looks of it."Pinny's heart had begun to beat hard inside her chest. "Do you think Luke is all right?"  
Alec lowered the witchlight. "I think we'd better find out."  
The door to the apartment was unlocked. It led into Luke's living room. Despite the hundreds of books in the store itself, there were hundreds more in the apartment. Bookshelves rose to the ceiling, the volumes on them "double-parked," one row blocking another. Most were poetry and fiction, with plenty of fantasy and mystery thrown in. Pinny remembered plowing through the entirety of Harry Potter here, curled up in Luke's window seat as the sun went down over the East River.  
"I think he's still around," called Simon, standing in the doorway of Luke's small kitchenette. "The percolator's on and there's coffee here. Still hot."  
Pinny peered around the kitchen door. Dishes were stacked in the sink. Luke's jackets were hung neatly on hooks inside the coat closet. She walked down the hallway and opened the door of his small bedroom. It looked the same as ever, the bed with its gray coverlet and flat pillows unmade, the top of the bureau covered in loose change. She turned away. Some part of her had been absolutely certain that when they walked in they'd find the place torn to pieces, and Luke tied up, injured or worse. Now she didn't know what to think.  
Numbly she crossed the hall to the little guest bedroom where she'd so often stayed when her mother was out of town on business. They'd stay up late watching old horror movies on the flickering black-and-white TV. She even kept a backpack full of extra things here so she didn't have to lug her stuff back and forth from home.  
Kneeling down, she tugged it out from under the bed by its olive-green strap. It was covered with buttons, most of which Simon had given her. GAMERS DO IT BETTER. OTAKU WENCH. STILL NOT KING. Inside were some folded clothes, a few spare pairs of underwear, a hairbrush, even shampoo. Thank God, she thought, and kicked the bedroom door closed. Quickly she changed, stripping off Isabelle's too-big—and now grass-stained and sweaty—clothes, and pulling on a pair of her own sandblasted cords, soft as worn paper, and a black tank top. She tossed Isabelle's clothes into her backpack, yanked the cord shut, and left the bedroom, the pack bouncing familiarly between her shoulder blades. It was nice to have something of her own again.  
She found Alec in Luke's book-lined office, examining a green duffel bag that lay unzipped across the desk. It was, as Simon had said, full of weapons—sheathed knives, a coiled whip, and something that looked like a razor-edged metal disk.  
"It's a chakram," said Alec, looking up as Pinny came into the room. "A Sikh weapon. You whirl it around your index finger before releasing it. They're rare and hard to use. Strange that Luke would have one. They used to be Hodge's weapon of choice, back in the day. Or so he tells me."  
"Luke collects stuff. Art objects. You know," Pinny said, indicating the shelf behind the desk, which was lined with bronze Indian and Russian idols. Her favorite was a statuette of the Indian goddess of destruction, Kali, brandishing a sword and a severed head as she danced with her head thrown back and her eyes slitted closed. To the side of the desk was an antique Chinese screen, carved out of glowing rosewood. "Pretty things."  
Alec moved the chakram aside gingerly. A handful of clothes spilled out of the untied end of Luke's duffel bag, as if they had been an afterthought. "I think this is yours, by the way."  
He drew out a rectangular object hidden among the clothes: a wooden-framed photograph with a long vertical crack along the glass. The crack threw a network of spidery lines across the smiling faces of Pinny, Luke, and her mother. "That is mine," Pinny said, taking it out of his hand.  
"It's cracked," Alec observed.  
"I know. I did that—I smashed it. When I threw it at the Ravener demon." She looked at him, seeing the dawning realization on his face. "That means Luke's been back to the apartment since the attack. Maybe even today—"  
"He must have been the last person to come through the Portal," said Alec. "That's why it took us here. You weren't thinking of anything, so it sent us to the last place it had been."  
"Nice of Dorothea to tell us he was there," said Pinny.  
"He probably paid her off to be quiet. Either that or she trusts him more than she trusts us. Which means he might not be—"  
"Guys!" It was Simon, dashing into the office in a panic. "Someone's coming."  
Pinny dropped the photo. "Is it Luke?"  
Simon peered back down the hall, then nodded. "It is. But he's not by himself—there are two men with him."  
"Men?" Alec crossed the room in a few strides, peered through the door, and spat a curse under his breath. "Warlocks."  
Pinny stared. "Warlocks? But—"  
Shaking his head, Alec backed away from the door. "Is there some other way out of here? A back door?"  
Pinny shook her head. The sound of footsteps in the hallway was audible now, striking pangs of fear into her chest.  
Alec looked around desperately. His eyes came to rest on the rosewood screen. "Get behind that," he said, pointing. "Now."Pinny dropped the fractured photo on the desk and slipped behind the screen, pulling Simon after her. Alec was right behind them, his stele in his hand. He had barely concealed himself when Pinny heard the door swing wide open, the sound of people walking into Luke's office—then voices. Three men speaking. She looked nervously at Simon, who was very pale, and then at Alec, who had raised the stele in his hand and was moving the tip lightly, in a sort of square shape, across the back of the screen. As Pinny stared, the square went clear, like a pane of glass. She heard Simon suck in his breath—a tiny sound, barely audible—and Alec shook his head at them both, mouthing words: They can't see us through it, but we can see them.  
Biting her lip, Pinny moved to the edge of the square and peered through it, conscious of Simon breathing down her neck. She could see the room beyond perfectly: the bookshelves, the desk with the duffel bag thrown across it—and Luke, ragged-looking and slightly stooped, his glasses pushed up to the top of his head, standing near the door. It was frightening even though she knew he couldn't see her, that the window Alec had made was like the glass in a police station interrogation room: strictly one-way.  
Luke turned, looking back through the doorway. "Yes, feel free to look around," he said, his tone heavily weighted with sarcasm. "Nice of you to show such an interest."  
A low chuckle sounded from the corner of the office. With an impatient flick of the wrist, Alec tapped the frame of his "window," and it opened out wider, showing more of the room. There were two men there with Luke, both in long reddish robes, their hoods pushed back. One was thin, with an elegant gray mustache and pointed beard. When he smiled, he showed blindingly white teeth. The other was burly, thickset as a wrestler, with close-cropped reddish hair. His skin was dark purple and looked shiny over the cheekbones, as if it had been stretched too tight.  
"Those are warlocks?" Pinny whispered softly.  
Alec didn't answer. He had gone rigid all over, stiff as a bar of iron. He's afraid I'll make a run for it, try to get to Luke, Pinny thought. She wished she could reassure him that she wouldn't. There was something about those two men, in their thick cloaks the color of arterial blood, that was terrifying.  
"Consider this a friendly follow-up, Graymark," said the man with the gray mustache. His smile showed teeth so sharp they looked as if they'd been filed to cannibal points.  
"There's nothing friendly about you, Pangborn." Luke sat down on the edge of his desk, angling his body so it blocked the men's view of his duffel bag and its contents. Now that he was closer, Pinny could see that his face and hands were badly bruised, his fingers scraped and bloody. A long cut along his neck disappeared down into his collar. What on earth happened to him?  
"Blackwell, don't touch that—it's valuable," Luke said sternly.  
The big redheaded man, who had picked up the statue of Kali from the top of the bookcase, ran his beefy fingers over it consideringly. "Nice," he said.  
"Ah," said Pangborn, taking the statue from his companion. "She who was created to battle a demon who could not be killed by any god or man. 'Oh, Kali, my mother full of bliss! Enchantress of the almighty Shiva, in thy delirious joy thou dancest, clapping thy hands together. Thou art the Mover of all that moves, and we are but thy helpless toys.'"  
"Very nice," said Luke. "I didn't know you were a student of the Indian myths." "All the myths are true," said Pangborn, and Pinny felt a small shiver go up her spine. "Or have you forgotten even that?"  
"I forget nothing," said Luke. Though he looked relaxed, Pinny could see tension in the lines of his shoulders and mouth. "I suppose Valentine sent you?"  
"He did," said Pangborn. "He thought you might have changed your mind."  
"There's nothing to change my mind about. I already told you I don't know anything. Nice cloaks, by the way."  
"Thanks," said Blackwell with a sly grin. "Skinned them off a couple of dead warlocks."  
"Those are official Accord robes, aren't they?" Luke asked. "Are they from the Uprising?"  
Pangborn chuckled softly. "Spoils of battle."  
"Aren't you afraid someone might mistake you for the real thing?"  
"Not," said Blackwell, "once they got up close."  
Pangborn fondled the edge of his robe. "Do you remember the Uprising, Lucian?" he said softly. "That was a great and terrible day. Do you remember how we trained together for the battle?"  
Luke's face twisted. "The past is the past. I don't know what to tell you gentlemen. I can't help you now. I don't know anything."  
"'Anything' is such a general word, so unspecific," said Pangborn, sounding melancholy. "Surely someone who owns so many books must know something."  
"If you want to know where to find a jog-toed swallow in springtime, I could direct you to the correct reference title. But if you want to know where the Mortal Cup has disappeared to …"  
"'Disappeared' might not be quite the correct word," purred Pangborn. "Hidden, more like. Hidden by Pearl.""That may be," said Luke. "So hasn't she told you where it is yet?"  
"She has not yet regained consciousness," said Pangborn, carving the air with a long-fingered hand. "Valentine is disappointed. He was looking forward to their reunion."  
"I'm sure she didn't reciprocate the sentiment," muttered Luke.  
Pangborn cackled. "Jealous, Graymark? Perhaps you no longer feel about her the way you used to."  
A trembling had started in Pinny's fingers, so pronounced that she knitted her hands together tightly to try to stop them from shaking. Pearl? Can they be talking about my mother?  
"I never felt any way about her, particularly," said Luke. "Two Shadowhunters, exiled from their own kind, you can see why we might have banded together. But I'm not going to try to interfere with Valentine's plans for her, if that's what he's worried about."  
"I wouldn't say he was worried," said Pangborn. "More curious. We all wondered if you were still alive. Still recognizably human."  
Luke arched his eyebrows. "And?"  
"You seem well enough," said Pangborn grudgingly. He set the Kali statuette down on the shelf. "There was a child, wasn't there? A girl."  
Luke looked taken aback. "What?"  
"Don't play dumb," said Blackwell in his snarl of a voice. "We know the bitch had a daughter. They found photos of her in the apartment, a bedroom—"  
"I thought you were asking about children of mine," Luke interrupted smoothly. "Yes, Jocelyn had a daughter. Pinynia. I assume she's run off. Did Valentine send you to find her?"  
"Not us," said Pangborn. "But he is looking.""We could search this place," added Blackwell.  
"I wouldn't advise it," said Luke, and slid off the desk. There was a certain cold menace to his look as he stared down at the two men, though his expression hadn't changed. "What makes you think she's still alive? I thought Valentine sent Raveners to scour the place. Enough Ravener poison, and most people will crumble away to ashes, leave no trace behind."  
"There was a dead Ravener," said Pangborn. "It made Valentine suspicious."  
"Everything makes Valentine suspicious," said Luke. "Maybe Pearl killed it. She was certainly capable."  
Blackwell grunted. "Maybe."  
Luke shrugged. "Look, I've got no idea where the girl is, but for what it's worth, I'd guess she's dead. She'd have turned up by now otherwise. Anyway, she's not much of a danger. She's fifteen years old,suspected of being schizoprhenic bu mundane doctors, she's never heard of Valentine, and she doesn't believe in demons. She's or dead or she's on the streets or placed in an loonatic asylum."  
Pangborn chuckled. "A fortunate child."  
"Not anymore," said Luke.  
Blackwell raised his eyebrows. "You sound angry, Lucian."  
"I'm not angry, I'm exasperated. I'm not planning on interfering with Valentine's plans, do you understand that? I'm not a fool."  
"Really?" said Blackwell. "It's nice to see that you've developed a healthy respect for your own skin over the years, Lucian. You weren't always so pragmatic."  
"You do know," said Pangborn, his tone conversational, "that we'd trade her, Jocelyn, for the Cup? Safely delivered, right to your door. That's a promise from Valentine himself.""I know," said Luke. "I'm not interested. I don't know where your precious Cup is, and I don't want to get involved in your politics. I hate Valentine," he added, "but I respect him. I know he'll mow down everyone in his path. I intend to be out of his way when it happens. He's a monster—a killing machine."  
"Look who's talking," snarled Blackwell.  
"I take it these are your preparations for removing yourself from Valentine's path?" said Pangborn, pointing a long finger at the half-concealed duffel bag on the desk. "Getting out of town, Lucian?"  
Luke nodded slowly. "Going to the country. I plan to lie low for a while."  
"We could stop you," said Blackwell. "Make you stay."  
Luke smiled. It transformed his face. Suddenly he was no longer the kind, scholarly man who'd pushed Pinny on the swings at the park and taught her how to ride a tricycle. Suddenly there was something feral behind his eyes, something vicious and cold. "You could try."  
Pangborn glanced at Blackwell, who shook his head once, slowly. Pangborn turned back to Luke. "You'll notify us if you experience any sudden memory resurgence?"  
Luke was still smiling. "You'll be first on my list to call."  
Pangborn nodded shortly. "I suppose we'll take our leave. The Angel guard you, Lucian."  
"The Angel does not guard those like me," said Luke. He picked the duffel bag up off the desk and knotted the top. "On your way, gentlemen?"  
Lifting their hoods to cover their faces again, the two men left the room, followed a moment later by Luke. He paused at the door, glancing around as if he wondered if he'd forgotten something. Then he shut it carefully behind stayed where she was, frozen, hearing the front door swing shut and the distant jingle of chain and keys as Luke refastened the padlock. She kept seeing the look on Luke's face, over and over, as he said he wasn't interested in what happened to her mother.  
She felt a hand on her shoulder. "Pinny?" It was Simon, his voice hesitant, almost gentle. "Are you okay?"  
She shook her head, mutely. She felt far from okay. In fact, she felt like she'd never be okay again.  
"Of course she isn't." It was Alec, his voice sharp and cold as ice shards. He took hold of the screen and moved it aside sharply. "At least now we know who would send a demon after your mother. Those men think she has the Mortal Cup."  
Pinny felt her lips thin into a straight line. "That's totally ridiculous and impossible."  
"Maybe," said Alec, leaning against Luke's desk. He fixed her with eyes as opaque as smoked glass. "Have you ever seen those men before?"  
"No." She shook her head. "Never."  
"Lucian seemed to know them. To be friendly with them."  
"I wouldn't say friendly," said Simon. "I'd say they were suppressing their hostility."  
"They didn't kill him outright," said Alec. "They think he knows more than he's telling."  
"Maybe," said Pinny, "or maybe they're just reluctant to kill another Shadowhunter."  
Alec laughed, a harsh, almost vicious noise that raised the hairs up on Pinny's arms. "I doubt that."  
She looked at him hard. "What makes you so sure? Do you know them?"The laughter had gone from his voice entirely when he replied. "Do I know them?" he echoed. "You might say that. Those are the men who were the executionars of Circle traitors. They murdered Jace's father. They are the same people who also killed my and Izzy's biological father for being a traitor too."


	9. Chapter 9

9  
THE CIRCLE AND THE BROTHERHOOD  
Pinny stepped forward to touch Alec's arm, say something, anything—what did you say to someone who'd just seen his, his sisters and his best friends fathers killers? Her hesitation turned out not to matter; Jace shrugged her touch off as if it stung. "We should go," he said, stalking out of the office and into the living room. Pinny and Simon hurried after him. "We don't know when Luke might come back."  
They left through the back entrance, Alec using his stele to lock up behind them, and made their way out onto the silent street. The moon hung like a locket over the city, casting pearly reflections on the water of the East River. The distant hum of cars going by over the Williamsburg Bridge filled the humid air with a sound like beating wings. Simon said, "Does anyone want to tell me where we're going?"  
"To the L train," said Alec calmly.  
"You've got to be kidding me," Simon said, blinking. "Demon slayers take the subway?"  
"It's faster than driving."  
"I thought it'd be something cooler, like a van with DEATH TO DEMONS painted on the outside, or …"  
Alec didn't even bother to interrupt. Pinny shot Alec a sideways look. Sometimes, when Pearl was really angry about something or was in one of her upset moods, she would get what Pinny called "scary-calm." It was a calm that made Pinny think of the deceptive hard sheen of ice just before it cracked under your weight. Alec was scary-calm. His face was expressionless, but something burned at the backs of his dark blue eyes.  
"Simon," she said. "Enough."  
Simon shot her a look as if to say, Whose side are you on? but Pinny ignored him. She was still watching Alec as they turned onto Kent Avenue. The lights of the bridge behind them lit his hair to an unlikely halo. She wondered if it was wrong that she was glad in some way that the men who'd taken her mother were the same men who'd killed Alec's father all those years ago. For now, at least, he'd have to help her find Jocelyn, whether he wanted to or not. For now, at least, he couldn't leave her alone.  
"You live here?" Simon stood staring up at the old cathedral, with its broken-in windows and doors sealed with yellow police tape. "But it's a church."  
Alec reached into the neck of his shirt and pulled out a brass key on the end of a chain. It looked like the sort of key one might use to open an old chest in an attic. Pinny watched him curiously—he hadn't locked the door behind him when they'd left the Institute before, just let it slam shut. "We find it useful to inhabit hallowed ground."  
"I get that but, no offense, this place is a dump," Simon said, looking dubiously at the bent iron fence that surrounded the ancient building, the trash piled up beside the steps.  
Pinny let her mind relax. She imagined herself taking one of her mother's turpentine rags and dabbing at the view in front of her, cleaning away the glamour as if it were old paint.  
There it was: the true vision, glowing through the false one like light through dark glass. She saw the soaring spires of the cathedral, the dull gleam of the leaded windows, the brass plate fixed to the stone wall beside the door, the Institute's name etched into it. She held the vision for a moment before letting it go almost with a sigh.  
"It's a glamour, Simon," she said. "It doesn't really look like this."  
"If this is your idea of glamour, I'm having second thoughts about letting you make me over."  
Alec fitted the key into the lock, glancing over his shoulder at Simon. "I'm not sure you're quite sensible of the honor I'm doing you," he said. "You'll be the first mundane who has ever been inside the Institute."  
"Probably the smell keeps the rest of them away."  
"Ignore him," Pinny said to Alec, and elbowed Simon in the side. "He always says exactly what comes into his head. No filters."  
"Filters are for cigarettes and coffee," Simon muttered under his breath as they went inside. "Two things I could use right now, incidentally."  
Pinny thought longingly of coffee as they made their way up a winding set of stone stairs, each one carved with a glyph. She was beginning to recognize some of them—they tantalized her sight the way half-heard words in a foreign language sometimes tantalized her hearing, as if by just concentrating harder she could force some meaning out of them.  
Pinny and the two boys reached the elevator and rode up in silence. She was still thinking about coffee, big mugs of coffee that were half milk the way her mother would make them in the morning. Sometimes Luke would bring them bags of sweet rolls from the Golden Carriage Bakery in Chinatown. At the thought of Luke, Pinny's stomach tightened, her appetite vanishing.  
The elevator came to a hissing stop, and they were again in the entryway Pinny remembered. Alec shrugged off his jacket, threw it over the back of a nearby chair, and whistled through his teeth. In a few seconds Church appeared, slinking low to the ground, his yellow eyes gleaming in the dusty air. "Church," Alec said, kneeling down to stroke the cat's gray head. "Where's Jace, Church? Where's Hodge?"  
Church arched his back and meowed. Alec crinkled his nose, which Pinny might have found cute in other circumstances. "Are they in the library?" He stood up, and Church shook himself, trotted a little way down the corridor, and glanced back over his shoulder. Alec followed the cat as if this were the most natural thing in the world, indicating with a wave of his hand that Pinny and Simon were to fall into step behind him.  
"I don't like cats," Simon said, his shoulder bumping Pinny's as they maneuvered the narrow hallway.  
"It's unlikely,"Alec said, "knowing Church, that he likes you, either."  
Pinny rolled her eyes. "You do know you got a cat yourself don't ya Simmy?" He ignored her as Alec chuckled.  
They were passing through one of the corridors that were lined with bedrooms. Simon's eyebrows rose. "How many people live here, exactly?"  
"It's an institute," Pinny said. "A place where Shadowhunters can stay when they're in the city. Like a sort of combination safe haven and research facility."  
"I thought it was a church."  
"It's inside a church dumbass."  
"Because that's not confusing." She could hear the nerves under his flippant tone. Instead of shushing him, Pinny reached down and took his hand, winding her fingers through his cold ones. His hand was clammy, but he returned the pressure with a grateful squeeze.  
"I know it's weird," she said quietly, "but you just have to go along with it. Trust me."Simon's dark eyes were serious. "I trust you," he said. "I just don't trust him." He cut his glance toward Alec, who was walking a few paces ahead of them, apparently conversing with the cat. Pinnywondered what they were talking about. Politics? Opera? The high price of tuna?  
"Well, try," she said. "Right now he's the best chance I'm going to have of finding my mom. So shut the fuck up."  
A little shudder passed over Simon. "This place feels not right to me," he whispered.  
Pinny remembered how she'd felt waking up here this morning—as if everything were both alien and familiar at the same time. For Simon, clearly, there was nothing of that familiarity, only the sense of the strange, the alien and inimical. "You don't have to stay with me," she said, though she'd fought Alec on the train for the right to keep Simon with her, pointing out that after his three days of watching Luke, he might well know something that would be useful to them once they had a chance to break it down in detail.  
"Yes," Simon said, "I do." And he let go of her hand as they turned through a doorway and found themselves inside a kitchen. It was an enormous kitchen, and unlike the rest of the Institute, it was all modern, with steel counters and glassed-in shelves holding rows of crockery. Next to a red cast-iron stove stood Isabelle, a round spoon in her hand, her dark hair pinned up on top of her head. Steam was rising from the pot, and ingredients were strewn everywhere—tomatoes, chopped garlic and onions, strings of dark-looking herbs, grated piles of cheese, some shelled peanuts, a handful of olives, and a whole fish, its eye staring glassily upward.  
"I'm making soup," Isabelle said, waving a spoon at Alec. "Are you hungry?" She glanced behind him then, her dark gaze taking in Simon as well as Pinny. Suddenly Pinny remembered ALec's warning about Isabelle's cooking.  
"Oh, my God," she said with finality. "You brought another mundie here? Hodge is going to kill you."  
Simon cleared his throat. "I'm Simon," he said.  
Isabelle ignored him. "ALEXANDER GIDEON LIGHTWOOD," she said. "Explain yourself."  
Alec was glaring at the cat. "I told you to bring me to Jace! Backstabbing Judas."  
Church rolled onto his back, purring contentedly.  
"Don't blame Church," Isabelle said. "It's not his fault Hodge is going to kill you." She plunged the spoon back into the pot. Pinny wondered what exactly peanut-fish-olive-tomato soup tasted like.  
"I had to bring him," Alec said. "Isabelle—today I saw two of the men who killed our father."  
Isabelle's shoulders tightened, but when she turned around, she looked more upset than surprised. "I don't suppose he's one of them?" she asked, pointing her spoon at Simon.  
To Pinny's surprise, Simon said nothing to this. He was too busy staring at Isabelle, rapt and openmouthed. Of course, Pinny realized with a sharp stab of annoyance. Isabelle was exactly Simon's type—tall, glamorous, and beautiful. Come to think of it, maybe that was everyone's type. Pinny stopped wondering about the peanut-fish-olive-tomato soup and started wondering what would happen if she dumped the contents of the pot on Isabelle's head.  
"Of course not," Alec said. "Do you think he'd be alive now if he were?"  
Isabelle cast an indifferent look at Simon. "I suppose not," she said, absently dropping a piece of fish on the floor. Church fell on it ravenously.  
"No wonder he brought us here," said Alec disgustedly. "I can't believe you've been stuffing him with fish again. He's looking fat.""He does not look fat! Besides, none of the rest of you ever eat anything. I got this recipe from a water sprite at the Chelsea Market. He said it was delicious—"  
"If you knew how to cook, maybe we would eat," Alec muttered.  
Isabelle froze, her spoon poised dangerously. "What did you say?"  
Alec edged toward the fridge. "I said I'm going to look for a snack to eat."  
"That's what I thought you said." Isabelle returned her attention to the soup. Simon continued to stare at Isabelle. Pinny, inexplicably furious, dropped her backpack on the floor and followed Alec to the refrigerator.  
"I can't believe you're freaking eating," she hissed.  
"What should I be doing instead?" he inquired with maddening calm. The inside of the fridge was filled with milk cartons whose expiration dates reached back several weeks, and plastic Tupperware containers labeled with masking tape lettered in red ink: HODGE'S. DO NOT EAT.  
"Wow, he's like a crazy roommate," Pinny observed, momentarily diverted.  
"What, Hodge? He just likes things in order." Alec took one of the containers out of the fridge and opened it. "Hmm. Spaghetti."  
Pinny giggled. "Don't you men psaghetti?"Turning her head to wink at Simon, who was grinning and shaking his head at the sight of Pinny.  
"Don't ruin your appetite," Isabelle called.  
"That," said Alec, kicking the fridge door shut and seizing a fork from a drawer, "is exactly what I intend to do." He looked at Pinny. "Want some?"  
She shook her head.  
"Of course not," he said around a mouthful, "you ate all those sandwiches."  
"It wasn't that many sandwiches." She glanced over at Simon, who appeared to have succeeded in engaging Isabelle in conversation. "Can we go find Hodge now?""You seem awfully eager to get out of here."  
"Don't you want to tell him what we saw?"  
"I haven't decided yet." Alec set the container down and thoughtfully licked spaghetti sauce off his knuckle. "But if you want to go so badly—"  
"I do."  
"Fine."  
He seemed awfully calm, she thought, not scary-calm as he had been before, but more contained than he ought to be. She wondered how often he let glimpses of his real self peek through the facade that was as hard and shiny as the coat of lacquer on one of her mother's Japanese boxes.  
"Where are you going?" Simon looked up as they reached the door. Jagged bits of dark hair fell into his eyes; he looked stupidly dazed, Pinny thought unkindly, as if someone had hit him across the back of the head with a two-by-four.  
"To find Hodge," she said. "I need to tell him about what happened at Luke's."  
Isabelle looked up. "Are you going to tell him that you saw those men, Alec? The ones that—"  
"I don't know." He cut her off. "So keep it to yourself for now."  
She shrugged. "All right. Are you going to come back? Do you want any soup?"  
"No," said Alec.  
"Do you think Hodge will want any soup?"  
"No one wants any soup." Translation; No one wants your soup.  
"I want some soup," Simon said.  
"No, you don't," said Alec. "You want to sleep with my sister."  
Simon was appalled. "That is not true."  
"How flattering," Isabelle murmured into the soup, but she was smirking."Yes," said Alec. "Go ahead and ask her—then she can turn you down and the rest of us can get on with our lives while you fester in miserable humiliation." He snapped his fingers. "Hurry up, mundie boy, we've got work to do."  
Simon looked away, flushed with embarrassment. Pinny, who a moment ago would have been meanly pleased, felt a rush of anger toward Alec. "Leave him alone bastard," she snapped. "There's no need to be sadistic just because he isn't one of you."  
"One of us," said Alec, but the hurt look had not gone out of his eyes. "I'm going to find Hodge. Come along or not, it's your choice." The kitchen door swung shut behind him, leaving Pinny alone with Simon and Isabelle.  
Isabelle ladled some of the soup into a bowl and pushed it across the counter toward Simon without looking at him. She was still smirking, though—Pinny could feel it. The soup was a dark green color, studded with floating brown things.  
"I'm going with Alec," Pinny said. "Simon …?"  
"Mmgnstayhr," he mumbled, looking at his feet.  
"What?"  
"I'm going to stay here." Simon parked himself on a stool. "I'm hungry."  
"Fine." Pinny's throat felt tight, as if she'd swallowed something either very hot or very cold. She stalked out of the kitchen, Church slinking at her feet like a cloudy gray shadow.  
In the hallway Alec was twirling one of the seraph blades between his fingers. He pocketed it when he saw her. "Kind of you to leave the lovebirds to it."  
Pinny frowned at him. "Why are you always such an asshat?"  
"An asshat?" Alec's hurt look appeared again.  
"What you said to Simon—""I was trying to save him some pain. Isabelle will cut out his heart and walk all over it in high-heeled boots. That's what she does to boys like ," turning to the cat, he said, "And really Hodge this time. Bring us anywhere else, and I'll make you into a tennis racket."  
The Persian snorted and slunk down the hall ahead of them. Pinny, trailing a little behind Alec, could see the stress and tiredness in the line of Alec's shoulders. She wondered if the tension ever really left him. "Alec."  
He looked at her. "What?"  
"I'm sorry. For snapping at you."  
He chuckled. "Which time?"  
"You snap at me, too, you know."  
"I know," he said, surprising her. "There's something about you that's so—"  
"Irritating?"  
"Unsettling."  
She wanted to ask if he meant that in a good or a bad way, but didn't. She was too afraid he'd make a joke out of the answer. She cast about for something else to say. "Does Isabelle always make dinner for you?" she asked.  
"No, thank God. Most of the time my mother and stepfather are here and Maryse—that's our mother—she cooks for us. She's an amazing cook." He looked dreamy, the way Simon had looked gazing at Isabelle over the soup.  
"Then how come she never taught Isabelle?" They were passing through the music room now, where she'd found Jace playing the piano that morning. Shadows had gathered thickly in the corners."Because," Alec said slowly, "it's only been recently that women have been Shadowhunters along with men. I mean, there have always been women in the Clave—mastering the runes, creating weaponry, teaching the Killing Arts—but only a few were warriors, ones with exceptional abilities. They had to fight to be trained. Maryse was a part of the first generation of Clave women who were trained as a matter of course—and I think she never taught Isabelle how to cook because she was afraid that if she did, Isabelle would be relegated to the kitchen permanently."  
"Would she have been?" Pinny asked curiously. She thought of Isabelle in Pandemonium, how confident she'd been and how assuredly she'd used her blood-spattering whip.  
Alec laughed softly. "Not Isabelle. She's one of the best Shadowhunters I've ever known."  
"Better than you or Jace?"  
Church, streaking soundlessly ahead of them through the gloom, came to a sudden halt and meowed. He was crouched at the foot of a metal spiral staircase that spun up into a hazy half-light overhead. "So he's in the greenhouse," Alec said. It took Pinny a moment before she realized he was speaking to the cat. "No surprise there."  
"The greenhouse?" Pinny said.  
Alec swung himself onto the first step. "Hodge likes it up there. He grows medicinal plants, things we can use. Most of them only grow in Idris. I think it reminds him of home. I am allergic, but luckily today I took some medicine..."  
Pinny followed him. Her shoes clattered on the metal steps; Alec'ss didn't. "Are you or Jace better than Isabelle?" she asked again.  
He paused and looked down at her, leaning down from the steps as if he were poised to fall. She remembered her dream: angels, falling and burning. "Better?" he said. "At demon-slaying? Jace? Definitely, maybe he's the best of our generation. Me? No, not really. Inever killed a demon.""Really?"  
"No. Two Downworlders and one Forsaken. I always try to protect the others." Pinny smiled. It was something she liked about Alec, behind his hateful self he was kind and protective. They had reached the top of the stairs. A set of double doors greeted them, carved with patterns of leaves and vines. Alecshouldered them open.  
The smell struck Pinny the moment she passed through the doors: a green, sharp smell, the smell of living and growing things, of dirt and the roots that grew in dirt. She had been expecting something much smaller, something the size of the little greenhouse out behind St. Xavier's, where the AP biology students cloned pea pods, or whatever it was they did. This was a huge glass-walled enclosure, lined with trees whose thickly leaved branches breathed out cool green-scented air. There were bushes hung with glossy berries, red and purple and black, and small trees hung with oddly shaped fruits she'd never seen before.  
Pinny exhaled. "It smells like …" Springtime, she thought, before the heat comes and crushes the leaves into pulp and withers the petals off the flowers.  
"Plants," said Alec chuckling, "to me." He pushed aside a hanging frond and ducked past it. Pinny followed.  
The greenhouse was laid out in what seemed to Pinny's untrained eye no particular pattern, but everywhere she looked was a riot of color: blue-purple blossoms spilling down the side of a shining green hedge, a trailing vine studded with jewel-toned orange buds. They emerged into a cleared space where a low granite bench rested against the bole of a drooping tree with silvery-green leaves. Water glimmered in a stone-bound rock pool. Hodge sat on the bench, his black bird perched on his shoulder. He had been staring thoughtfully down at the water, but looked skyward at their approach. Pinny followed his gaze upward and saw the glass roof of the greenhouse shining above them like the surface of an inverted lake."You look like you're waiting for something," Alec observed, breaking a leaf off a nearby bough and twirling it between his fingers. For someone who seemed so contained, he had a lot of nervous habits. Perhaps he just liked to be constantly in motion.  
"I was lost in thought." Hodge rose from the bench, stretching out his arm for Hugo. The smile faded from his face as he looked at them. "What happened? You look as if—"  
"We were attacked," Alec said shortly. "Forsaken."  
"Forsaken warriors? Here?"  
"Warrior," said Alec. "We only saw one."  
"But Dorothea said there were more," Pinny added.  
"Dorothea?" Hodge held a hand up. "This might be easier if you took events in order."  
"Right." Alec gave Pinny a warning look, cutting her off before she could start talking. Then he launched into a recital of the afternoon's events, leaving out only one detail—that the men in Luke's apartment had been the same men who'd killed Jace's father seven years ago and his and Isabelle's sixteen years ago. "Pinny's mother's friend—or whatever he is, really—goes by the name Luke Garroway," Jace finished finally. "But while we were at his house, the two men who claimed they were emissaries of Valentine referred to him as Lucian Graymark."  
"And their names were …"  
"Pangborn," said Alec. "And Blackwell."  
Hodge had gone very pale. Against his gray skin the scar along his cheek stood out like a twist of red wire. "It is as I feared," he said, half to himself. "The Circle is rising again."  
Pinny looked at Alec for clarification, but he seemed as puzzled as she was. "The Circle?" he said.  
Hodge was shaking his head as if trying to clear cobwebs from his brain. "Come with me," he said. "It's time I showed you something."The gas lamps were lit in the library, and the polished oak surfaces of the furniture seemed to smolder like somber jewels. Streaked with shadows, the stark faces of the angels holding up the enormous desk looked even more suffused with pain. Pinny sat on the red sofa, legs drawn up, Alec leaning restlessly against the sofa arm beside her. "Hodge, if you need help looking—"  
"Not at all." Hodge emerged from behind the desk, brushing dust from the knees of his trousers. "I've found it."  
He was carrying a large book bound in brown leather. He paged through it with an anxious finger, blinking owl-like behind his glasses and muttering: "Where … where … ah, here it is!" He cleared his throat before he read aloud: "'I hereby render unconditional obedience to the Circle and its principles …. I will be ready to risk my life at any time for the Circle, in order to preserve the purity of the bloodlines of Idris, and for the mortal world with whose safety we are charged.'"  
Alec made a face. "What was that from?"  
"It was the loyalty oath of the Circle of Raziel, twenty years ago," said Hodge, sounding strangely tired.  
"It sounds creepy," said Pinny. "Like a fascist organization or something."  
Hodge set the book down. He looked as pained and grave as the statuary angels beneath the desk. "They were a group," he said slowly, "of Shadowhunters, led by Valentine, dedicated to wiping out all Downworlders and returning the world to a 'purer' state. Their plan was to wait for the Downworlders to arrive in Idris to sign the Accords. They must be signed again each fifteen years, to keep their magic potent," he added, for Pinny's benefit. "Then, they planned to slaughter them all, unarmed and defenseless. This terrible act, they thought, would spark off a war between humans and Downworlders—one they intended to win."  
"That was the Uprising," said Alec, finally recognizing in Hodge's story one that was already familiar to him.  
"Didn't knew they had a name." Pinny mumbled.  
"The name isn't spoken often nowadays," said Hodge. "Their existence remains an embarrassment to the Clave. Most documents pertaining to them have been destroyed."  
"Then why do you have a copy of that oath?" Pinny asked.  
Hodge hesitated—only for a moment, but Pinny saw it, and felt a small and inexplicable shiver of apprehension run up her spine. "Because," he said, finally, "I helped write it."  
Pinny looked up at that. "You were in the Circle."  
"I was. Many of us were." Hodge was looking straight ahead. "Pinny's mother as well."  
Pinny jerked back as if he'd slapped her. "What?"  
"I said—"  
"I know what you said! My mother would never have belonged to something like that. Some kind of—some kind of hate group."  
"It wasn't—" Alec began, but Hodge cut him off.  
"I doubt," he said slowly, as if the words pained him, "that she had much choice."  
Pinny stared. "What are you talking about? Why wouldn't she have had a choice?"  
"Because," said Hodge, "she was Valentine's wife."


	10. Chapter 10

10  
CITY OF BONES  
There was a moment of astonished silence before both Pinny and Alec began speaking at , more like shouting anyway.  
"Valentine had a wife? He was married? I thought—"  
"That's impossible! My mother would never—she was only ever married to my father! She didn't have an fucking ex-husband!"  
Hodge raised his hands wearily. "Children—"  
"I'm not a freaking child." Pinny spun away from the desk. "And I don't want to hear any more."  
"Pinynia," said Hodge. The kindness in his voice hurt; she turned slowly, and looked at him across the room. She thought how odd it was that, with his gray hair and scarred face, he looked so much older than her mother. And yet they had been "young people" together, had joined the Circle together, had known Valentine together. "My mother wouldn't …" she began, and trailed off. She was no longer sure how well she knew Pearl. Her mother had become a stranger to her, a liar, a hider of fucking dangerous secrets. What wouldn't she have done?  
"Your mother left the Circle," said Hodge. He didn't move toward her but watched her across the room with a bird's bright-eyed stillness. "Once we realized how extreme Valentine's views had become—once we knew what he was prepared to do—many of us left. Lucian was the first to leave. That was a blow to Valentine. They had been very close." Hodge shook his head. "Then your father, Alec. At least, that is the only thing we know."  
Alec raised his eyebrows, but said nothing.  
"There were those who stayed loyal. Pangborn. Blackwell. The Lightwoods—"  
"The Lightwoods? You mean his mother and stepfather too?" Pinny looked thunderstruck. "What about you? When did you leave?"  
"I didn't," said Hodge softly. "Neither did they …. We were afraid, too afraid of what he might do. After the Uprising the loyalists like Blackwell and Pangborn fled. We stayed and cooperated with the Clave. Gave them names. Helped them track down the ones who had run away. For that we received clemency."  
"Clemency?" Pinny's look was quick, but Hodge saw it.  
He said, "You are thinking of the curse that binds me here, aren't you? You always assumed it was a vengeance spell cast by an angry demon or warlock. I let you think it. But it is not the truth. The curse that binds me was cast by the Clave."  
"For being in the Circle?" Pinny asked, her face a mask of astonishment.  
"For not leaving it before the Uprising."  
"But the Lightwoods weren't punished," Pinny said. "Why not? They'd done the same thing you'd done."  
"There were extenuating circumstances in their case—they were married; they had a child. Although it is not as if they reside in this outpost, far from home, by their own choice. We were banished here, the three of us—Robert was slowly starting to have a normal relationship with the grieving Maryse. Well actually, the four of us, I should say; Alec was a squalling baby when we left the Glass City. They can return to Idris on official business only, and then only for short times. I can never return. I will never see the Glass City again."  
Alec stared. it must be painful, Pinny thought, to be a baby who was banned, to have no clue about his father. At least that was what she assumed. He said, "'The Law is too hard, but it is still the Law.'"  
"I taught you that," said Hodge, dry amusement in his voice. "And now you turn my lessons back at me. Rightly too." He looked as if he wanted to sink down into a nearby chair, but held himself upright nevertheless. In his rigid posture there was something of the soldier he had once been, Pinny thought.  
"Why didn't you tell me before?" she said. "That my mother was married to Valentine. You knew her name—"  
"I knew her as Pearl Blackblood, not Pearl Black," said Hodge. "It's true that it seemed suspicious but then again, Pearl had dark red hair, you had dark, the eyes were different and yout face, your face doesn't look like hers at all. I was suspicious yes, very suspicious but ten again, Pearl had been smarter. And you were so insistent on her ignorance of the Shadow World, you convinced me it could possibly not be the Pearl I knew—and perhaps I did not want to believe it. No one would wish for Valentine's return." He shook his head again. "When I sent for the Brothers of the Bone City this morning, I had no idea just what news we would have for them," he said. "When the Clave finds out Valentine may have returned, that he is seeking the Cup, there will be an uproar. I can only hope it does not disrupt the Accords."  
"I bet Valentine would like that," Alec said. "But why does he want the Cup so badly?"  
Hodge's face was gray. "Isn't that obvious?" he said. "So he can build himself an army."  
Alec looked startled. "But that would never—"  
"Dinnertime!" It was Isabelle, standing framed in the door of the library. She still had the spoon in her hand, though her hair had escaped from its bun and was straggling down her neck. "Sorry if I'm interrupting," she added, as an afterthought.  
"Dear God," said Alec, "the dread hour is nigh." Hodge looked alarmed. "I—I—I had a very filling breakfast," he stammered. "I mean lunch. A filling lunch. I couldn't possibly eat—"  
"I threw out the soup," Isabelle said. "And ordered Chinese from that place downtown."  
Alec unhitched himself from the desk and stretched. "Great. I'm starved."  
"I might be able to eat a bite," admitted Hodge meekly.  
"You two are terrible liars," said Isabelle darkly. "Look, I know you don't like my cooking—"  
"So stop doing it," Alec advised her reasonably.  
Isabelle cast her eyes skyward. "Yes."  
"Awesome." Alec ducked by her with an affectionate ruffle of her hair. Hodge went after him, pausing only to pat Isabelle on the shoulder—then he was gone, with a funny apologetic duck of the head. Had Pinny really only a few minutes before been able to see the ghost in him of his old warrior self?  
Isabelle was looking after Alec and Hodge, twisting the spoon in her scarred, pale fingers. Pinny said, "Is he really?"  
Isabelle didn't look at her. "Is who really what?"  
"Alec. Is he really a terrible liar?"  
Now Isabelle did turn her eyes on Clary, and they were large and dark and unexpectedly thoughtful. "He's not a liar at all. Not about important things. He'll tell you horrible truths, but he won't lie." She paused before she added quietly, "That's why it's generally better not to ask him anything unless you know you can stand to hear the answer."  
The kitchen was warm and full of light and the salt-sweet smell of takeout Chinese food. The smell reminded Pinny of home; she sat and looked at her glistening plate of noodles, toyed with her fork, and tried not to look at Simon, who was staring at Isabelle with an expression more glazed than the General Tso's Duckling.  
"Well, I think it's kind of romantic," said Isabelle, sucking tapioca pearls through an enormous pink straw.  
"What is?" asked Simon, instantly alert.  
"That whole business about Pinny's mother being married to Valentine," said Isabelle. Alecand Hodge had filled her in, though Pinny noted that both had left out the part about the Lightwoods having been in the Circle, and the curses the Clave had handed down. "So now he's back from the dead and he's come looking for her. Maybe he wants to get back together."  
"I kind of doubt he sent a Ravener demon to her house because he wants to 'get back together,'" said Alec, who had turned up when the food was served. He was sitting next to Jace, across from Pinny, and was avoiding looking at her.  
"It wouldn't be my move," Jace agreed. "First the candy and flowers, then the apology letters, then the ravenous demon hordes. In that order."  
"He might have sent her candy and flowers," Isabelle said. "We don't know."  
"Isabelle," said Hodge patiently, "this is the man who rained down destruction on Idris the like of which it had never seen, who set Shadowhunter against Downworlder and made the streets of the Glass City run with blood."  
"That's sort of hot," Isabelle argued, "that evil thing."Simon tried to look menacing, but gave it up when he saw Pinny staring at him while she tried to hold her laughter by biting in her sleeve while she hold her nose tight to stop from bursting. "So why does Valentine want this Cup so bad, and why does he think Pinny's mom has it?" he asked.  
"You said it was so he could make an army," Clary said, turning to Hodge. "You mean because you can use the Cup to make Shadowhunters?"  
"Yes."  
"So Valentine could just walk up to any guy on the street and make a Shadowhunter out of him? Just with the Cup?" Simon leaned forward. "Would it work on me?"  
Hodge gave him a long and measured look. "Possibly," he said. "But most likely, you're too old. The Cup works on children. An adult would either be unaffected by the process entirely, or killed outright."  
"A child army," said Isabelle softly.  
"Only for a few years," said Jace. "Kids grow fast. It wouldn't be too long before they were a force to contend with."  
"I don't know," said Simon. "Turning a bunch of kids into warriors—I've heard of worse stuff happening. I don't see the big deal about keeping the Cup away from him."  
"Leaving out that he would inevitably use this army to launch an attack on the Clave," Hodge said dryly, "the reason that only a few humans are selected to be turned into Nephilim is that most would never survive the transition. It takes special strength and resilience. Before they can be turned, they must be extensively tested—but Valentine would never bother with that. He would use the Cup on any child he could capture, and cull out the twenty percent who survived to be his army."  
Alec was looking at Hodge with the same horror Clary felt. "How do you know he'd do that?"Because," Hodge said, "when he was in the Circle, that was his plan. He said it was the only way to build the kind of force that was needed to defend our world."  
"But that's murder," said Isabelle, who looked a little green. "He was talking about killing children."  
"He said that we had made the world safe for humans for a thousand years," said Hodge, "and now was their time to repay us with their own sacrifice."  
"Their children?" demanded Jace, his cheeks flushed. "That goes against everything we're supposed to be about. Protecting the helpless, safeguarding humanity—"  
Hodge pushed his plate away. "Valentine was insane," he said. "Brilliant, but insane. He cared about nothing but killing demons and Downworlders. Nothing but making the world pure. He would have sacrificed his children for the cause and could not understand how anyone else would not."  
"He had children?" said Alec.  
"I was speaking figuratively," said Hodge, reaching for his handkerchief. He used it to mop his forehead before returning it to his pocket. His hand, Pinny saw, was trembling slightly. "When his land burned, when his home was destroyed, it was assumed that he had burned himself and the Cup to ashes rather than relinquish either to the Clave. His bones were found in the ashes, along with the bones of his wife."  
"But my mother lived," said Pinny. "She didn't die in that fire."  
"And neither, it seems now, did Valentine," said Hodge. "The Clave will not be pleased to have been fooled. But more importantly, they will want to secure the Cup. And more importantly than that, they will want to make sure Valentine does not."  
"It seems to me that the first thing we'd better do is find Pinny's mother," said Jace. "Find her, find the Cup, get it before Valentine does."his sounded fine to Pinny, but Hodge looked at Jace as if he'd proposed juggling nitroglycerine as a solution. "Absolutely not."  
"Then what do we do?"  
"Nothing," Hodge said. "All this is best left to skilled, experienced Shadowhunters."  
"I am skilled," protested Jace. "I am experienced."  
Hodge's tone was firm, nearly parental. "I know that you are, but you're still a child, or nearly one."  
Jace looked at Hodge through slitted eyes. His lashes were long, casting shadows down over his angular cheekbones. In someone else it would have been a shy look, even an apologetic one, but on Jace it looked narrow and menacing. "I am not a child."  
"Hodge is right," said Alec. He was looking at Jace, and Clary thought that he must be one of the few people in the world who looked at Jace not as if he were afraid of him, but as if he were afraid for him. "Valentine is dangerous. I know you're a good Shadowhunter. You're probably the best our age. But Valentine's one of the best there ever was. It took a huge battle to bring him down. I don't want you all to get hurt."  
"And he didn't exactly stay down," said Isabelle, examining her fork tines. "Apparently."  
"But we're here," said Jace. "We're here and because of the Accords, nobody else is. If we don't do something—"  
"We are going to do something," said Hodge. "I'll send the Clave a message tonight. They could have a force of Nephilim here by tomorrow if they wanted. They'll take care of this. You have done more than enough."  
Jace subsided, but his eyes were still glittering. "I don't like it."  
"You don't have to like it," said Alec. "You just have to shut up and not do anything stupid."  
"But what about my mother?" Pinny demanded. "She can't wait for some representative from the Clave to show up. Valentine has her right now—Pangborn and Blackwell said so—and he could be …" She couldn't bring herself to say the word "torture," but Pinny knew she wasn't the only one thinking it. Suddenly no one at the table could meet her eyes.  
Except Simon. "Hurting her," he said, finishing her sentence. "Except, Pinny, they also said she was unconscious and that Valentine wasn't happy about it. He seems to be waiting for her to wake up."  
"I'd stay unconscious if I were her," Isabelle muttered.  
"But that could be any time," said Pinny, ignoring Isabelle. "I thought the Clave was pledged to protect people. Shouldn't there be Shadowhunters here right now? Shouldn't they already be searching for her?"  
"That would be easier," snapped Alec, "if we had the slightest idea where to look."  
"But we do," said Jace.  
"You do?" Pinny looked at him, startled and eager. "Where?"  
"Here." Jace leaned forward and touched his fingers to the side of her temple, so gently that a flush crept up her face. "Everything we need to know is locked up in your head, under those pretty coloured curls."  
Pinny reached up to touch her hair protectively. "I don't think—"  
"So what are you going to do?" Simon asked sharply. "Cut her head open to get at it?"  
Alec's eyes sparked, knowing what Jace wanted, he said calmly, "Not at all. The Silent Brothers can help her retrieve her memories."  
"You hate the Silent Brothers," protested Isabelle.  
"I don't hate them," said Alec candidly. "I'm afraid of them. It's not the same thing."  
"I thought you said they were librarians," said Pinny.  
"They are librarians."  
Simon whistled. "Those must be some killer late fees."  
"The Silent Brothers are archivists, but that is not all they are," interrupted Hodge, sounding as if he were running out of patience. "In order to strengthen their minds, they have chosen to take upon themselves some of the most powerful runes ever created. The power of these runes is so great that the use of them—" He broke off and Pinny heard Isabelle's voice in her head, saying: They mutilate themselves. "Well, it warps and twists their physical forms. They are not warriors in the sense that other Shadowhunters are warriors. Their powers are of the mind, not the body."  
"They can read minds?" Pinny said in a small voice.  
"Among other things. They are among the most feared of all demon hunters."  
"I don't know," said Simon, "it doesn't sound so bad to me. I'd rather have someone mess around inside my head than chop it off."  
"Then you're a bigger idiot than you look," said Alec, regarding him with scorn.  
"Alec is right," said Isabelle, ignoring Simon. "The Silent Brothers are really creepy."  
Hodge's hand was clenched on the table. "They are very powerful," he said. "They walk in darkness and do not speak, but they can crack open a man's mind the way you might crack open a walnut—and leave him screaming alone in the dark if that is what they desire."  
Pinny looked at Jace and Alec, appalled. "You want to give me to them?"  
"I don't know about the other but me and Alec want them to help you." Jace leaned across the table, so close she could see the darker amber flecks in his light eyes. "Maybe we don't get to look for the Cup," he said softly. "Maybe the Clave will do what's in your mind belongs to you. Someone's hidden secrets there, secrets you can't see. Don't you want to know the truth about your own life?"  
"I don't want someone else inside my head," she said weakly. She knew he was right, but the idea of turning herself over to beings that even the Shadowhunters thought were creepy sent a chill through her blood.  
"I'll go with you," said Alec. "I'll stay with you while they do it."  
"That's enough." Simon had stood up from the table, red with anger. "Leave her alone."  
Alec glanced over at Simon as if he'd just noticed him, raking tumbled black hair out of his eyes and blinking. "What are you still doing here, mundane?"  
Simon ignored him. "I said, leave her alone."  
Jace glanced over at him, a slow, sweetly poisonous glance. "Alec is right," he said. "The Institute is sworn to shelter Shadowhunters, not their mundane friends. Especially when they've worn out their welcome."  
Isabelle got up and took Simon's arm. "I'll show him out." For a moment it looked like he might resist her, but he caught Pinny's eye across the table as she shook her head slightly. He subsided. Head up, he let Isabelle lead him from the room.  
Pinny stood up. "I'm tired," she said. "I want to go to sleep."  
"You've have not eaten anything—" Jace protested.  
She brushed aside his reaching hand. "I'm not hungry."  
It was cooler in the hallway than it had been in the kitchen. Pinny leaned against the wall, pulling at her shirt, which was sticking to the cold sweat on her chest. Far down the hall she could see Isabelle's and Simon's retreating figures, swallowed up by shadows. She watched them go silently, a shivery odd feeling growing in the pit of her stomach. When had Simon become Isabelle's responsibility, instead of hers? If there was one thing she was learning from all this, it was how easy it was to lose everything you had always thought you'd have forever.  
The room was all gold and white, with high walls that gleamed like enamel, and a roof, high above, clear and glittering like diamonds. Pinny wore a green velvet dress and carried a gold fan in her hand. Her hair, twisted into a knot that spilled curls, made her head feel strangely heavy every time she turned to look behind her.  
"You see someone more interesting than me?" asked Simon. In the dream he was mysteriously an expert dancer. He steered her through the crowd as if she were a leaf caught in a river current. He was wearing all black, like a Shadowhunter, and it showed his coloring to good advantage: dark hair, lightly browned skin, white teeth. He's handsome, Pinny thought, with a jolt of surprise.  
"There's no one more interesting than you," Pinny said. "It's just this place. I've never seen anything like it." She turned again as they passed a champagne fountain: an enormous silver dish, the centerpiece a mermaid with a jar pouring sparkling wine down her bare back. People were filling their glasses from the dish, laughing and talking. The mermaid turned her head as Pinny passed, and smiled. The smile showed white teeth as sharp as a vampire's.  
"Welcome to the Glass City," said a voice that wasn't Simon's. Pinny found that Simon had disappeared and she was now dancing with Alec, who was wearing white, the material of his shirt a thin cotton; she could see the black Marks through it. There was a bronze chain around his throat, and his hair and eyes looked more blue than ever; the white made him look even more like living ivory or porcelain and his blackhair and dark blue eyes seemed to shine brightly.  
"Where's Simon?" she asked as they spun again around the champagne fountain. Pinny saw Isabelle there, with Jace, she was dressed in royal blue and he in golden. They were holding hands like Hansel and Gretel in the dark forest.  
"This place is for the living," said Alec. His hands were cool on hers, and she was aware of them in a way she had not been of Simon's.  
She narrowed her eyes at him. "What do you mean?"  
He leaned close. She could feel his lips against her ear. They were not cool at all. "Wake up, Pinny," he whispered. "Wake up. Wake up."  
She bolted upright in bed, gasping, hair plastered to her neck with cold sweat. Her wrists were held in a hard grip; she tried to pull away, then realized who was restraining her. "Alec?"  
"Yeah." He was sitting on the edge of the bed—how had she gotten into a bed?—looking tousled and half-awake, with early morning hair and sleepy eyes.  
"Let go of me."  
"Sorry." His fingers slipped from her wrists. "You tried to hit me the second I said your name."  
"I'm a little jumpy, I guess." She glanced around. She was in a small bedroom furnished in dark wood. By the quality of the faint light coming in through the half-open window, she guessed it was dawn, or just after. Her backpack was propped against one wall. "How did I get here? I don't remember …"  
"I found you asleep on the floor in the hallway." Alec sounded amused. "Hodge helped me get you into bed. Thought you'd be more comfortable in a guest room than in the infirmary."  
"Wowz. I don't remember a shit." She ran her hands through her hair, pushing draggled curls out of her eyes. "What time is it, anyway?"  
"About five."  
"In the morning?" She glared at him. "You'd better have a good reason for waking me up."  
"Why, were you having a good dream?"She could still hear music in her ears, feel the heavy jewels brushing her cheeks. "I don't remember."  
He stood up. "One of the Silent Brothers is here to see you. Hodge sent me to wake you up. Actually, he offered to wake you up himself, but since it's five a.m., I figured you'd be less cranky if you had someone you'd like more to wake you up."  
"Meaning you?"  
"What else?"  
"I didn't agree to this, you know," she snapped. "This Silent Brother thing."  
"Do you want to find your mother," he said, "or not?"  
She stared at him.  
"You just have to meet Brother Jeremiah. "  
She put her head in her hands. "Get out. Get out so I can change."  
She swung her legs out of bed the moment the door shut behind him. Though it was barely dawn, humid heat was already beginning to gather in the room. She pushed the window shut and went into the bathroom to wash her face and rinse her mouth, which tasted like old paper.  
Five minutes later she was sliding her feet into her green sneakers. She'd changed into cutoffs and a plain black T-shirt. She pulled her hair back into a ponytail and went to join Alec in the hallway.  
Church was there with him, muttering and circling restlessly.  
"What's with the cat?" Pinny asked.  
"The Silent Brothers make him nervous."  
"Sounds like they make everyone nervous."Alec smiled thinly. Church meowed as they set off down the hall, but didn't follow them. At least the thick stones of the cathedral walls still held some of the night's chill: The corridors were dark and cool.  
When they reached the library, Pinny was surprised to see that the lamps were off. The library was lit only by the milky glow that filtered down through the high windows set into the vaulted roof. Hodge sat behind the enormous desk in a suit, his gray-streaked hair silvered by the dawn light. For a moment she thought he was alone in the room: that Alec had been playing a joke on her. Then she saw a figure move out of the dimness, and she realized that what she had thought was a patch of darker shadow was a man. A tall man in a heavy robe that fell from neck to foot, covering him completely. The hood of the robe was raised, hiding his face. The robe itself was the color of parchment, and the intricate runic designs along the hem and sleeves looked as if they had been inked there in drying blood. The hair rose along Pinny's arms and on the back of her neck, prickling almost painfully.  
"This," said Hodge, "is Brother Jeremiah of the Silent City."  
The man came toward them, his heavy cloak swirling as he moved, and Pinny realized what it was about him that was strange: He made no sound at all as he walked, not the slightest footstep. Even his cloak, which should have rustled, was silent. She would almost have wondered if he were a ghost—but no, she thought as he halted in front of them, there was a strange, sweet smell about him, like incense and blood, the smell of something living.  
"And this, Jeremiah," Hodge said, rising from his desk, "is the girl I wrote to you about. Pinynia Black."  
The hooded face turned slowly toward her. Pinny felt cold to her fingertips. "Hello," she said.  
There was no reply."I decided you were right, Alec," said Hodge.  
"I sent a letter to the Clave about all this last night, but Pinynia's memories are her own. Only she can decide how she wants to deal with the contents of her own head. If she wants the help of the Silent Brothers, she should have that choice."  
Pinny said nothing. Dorothea had said there was a block in her mind, hiding something. Of course she wanted to know what it was. But the shadowy figure of the Silent Brother was so—well, silent. Silence itself seemed to flow from him like a dark tide, black and thick as ink. It chilled her bones.  
Brother Jeremiah's face was still turned toward her, nothing but darkness visible underneath his hood. This is Pearl's daughter?  
Pinny gave a little gasp, stepping back. The words had echoed inside her head, as if she'd thought them herself—but she hadn't.  
"Yes," said Hodge, and added quickly, "but her father was a mundane."  
That does not matter, said Jeremiah. The blood of the Clave is dominant.  
"Why did you call my mother Pearl?" said Pinny, searching in vain for some sign of a face beneath the hood. "Did you know her?"  
"The Brothers keep records on all members of the Clave," explained Hodge. "Exhaustive records—"  
"Not that exhaustive," said Alec, "if they didn't even know she was still alive."  
It is likely that she had the assistance of a warlock in her disappearance. Most Shadowhunters cannot so easily escape the Clave. There was no emotion in Jeremiah's voice; he sounded neither approving nor disapproving of Pearl's actions.  
"There's something I don't understand," Pinny said. "Why would Valentine think my mom had the Mortal Cup? If she went through so much trouble to disappear, like you said, then why would she bring it with her?"  
"To keep him from getting his hands on it," said Hodge. "She above all people would have known what would happen if Valentine had the Cup. And I imagine she didn't trust the Clave to hold on to it. Not after Valentine got it away from them in the first place."  
"I guess." Pinny couldn't keep the doubt from her voice. The whole thing seemed so unlikely. She tried to picture her mother fleeing under cover of darkness, with a big gold cup stashed in the pocket of her overalls, and failed.  
"Pearl turned against her husband when she found out what he intended to do with the Cup," said Hodge. "It's not unreasonable to assume she would do everything in her power to keep the Cup from falling into his hands. The Clave themselves would have looked first to her if they'd thought she was still alive."  
"It seems to me," Pinny said with an edge to her voice, "that no one the Clave thinks is dead is ever actually dead. Maybe they should invest in dental records."  
"My father's dead," said Alec, the same edge in his voice. "I don't need dental records to tell me that."  
Pinny turned on him in some exasperation. "Look, I didn't mean—"  
That is enough, interrupted Brother Jeremiah. There is truth to be learned here, if you are patient enough to listen to it.  
With a quick gesture he raised his hands and drew the hood back from his face. Forgetting Alec, Pinny fought the urge to cry out. The archivist's head was bald, smooth and white as an egg, darkly indented where his eyes had once been. They were gone lips were crisscrossed with a pattern of dark lines that resembled surgical stitches. She understood now what Isabelle had meant by mutilation.  
The Brothers of the Silent City do not lie, said Jeremiah. If you want the truth from me, you shall have it, but I shall ask of you the same in return.  
Pinny lifted her chin. "I'm not a liar either."  
The mind cannot lie. Jeremiah moved toward her. It is your memories I want.  
The smell of blood and ink was stifling. Pinny felt a wave of panic. "Wait—"  
"Pinynia." It was Hodge, his tone gentle. "It's entirely possible that there are memories you have buried or repressed, memories formed when you were too young to have a conscious recollection of them, that Brother Jeremiah can reach. It could help us a great deal."  
She said nothing, biting the inside of her lip. She hated the idea of someone reaching inside her head, touching memories so private and hidden that even she couldn't reach them.  
"She doesn't have to do anything she doesn't want to do," Alec said suddenly. "Does she?"  
Pinny interrupted Hodge before he could reply. "It's all right. I'll do it."  
Brother Jeremiah nodded curtly, and moved toward her with the soundlessness that sent chills up her spine. "Will it hurt?" she groaned.  
He didn't reply, but his narrow white hands came up to touch her face. The skin of his fingers was thin as parchment paper, inked all over with runes. She could feel the power in them, jumping like static electricity to sting her skin. She closed her eyes, but not before she saw the anxious expression that crossed Hodge's swirled up against the darkness behind her eyelids. She felt a pressure, a drawing pull in her head and hands and feet. She clenched her hands, straining against the weight, the blackness. She felt as if she were pressed up against something hard and unyielding, being slowly crushed. She heard herself gasp and went suddenly cold all over, cold as winter. In a flash she saw an icy street, gray buildings looming overhead, an explosion of whiteness stinging her face in freezing particles—  
"That's enough." Alec; s voice cut through the winter chill, and the falling snow vanished, a shower of white sparks. Pinny's eyes sprang open.  
Slowly the library came back into focus—the book-lined walls, the anxious faces of Hodge and Alec. Brother Jeremiah stood unmoving, a carved idol of ivory and red ink. Pinny became aware of the sharp pains in her hands, and glanced down to see red lines scored across her skin where her nails had dug in.  
"Alec," Hodge said reprovingly.  
"Look at her hands." Alec gestured toward Pinny, who curled her fingers in to cover her injured palms.  
Hodge put a broad hand on her shoulder. "Are you all right?"  
Slowly she moved her head in a nod. The crushing weight had gone, but she could feel the sweat that drenched her hair, pasted her shirt to her back like sticky tape.  
There is a block in your mind, said Brother Jeremiah. Your memories cannot be reached.  
"A block?" asked Alec. "You mean she's repressed her memories?"  
No. I mean they have been blocked from her conscious mind by a spell. I cannot break it here. She will have to come to the Bone City and stand before the Brotherhood.  
"A spell?" said Pinny incredulously. "Who would want to put a fucking spell on me?"Nobody answered her. Alec looked at his tutor. He was surprisingly pale, Pinny thought, considering that this had been his idea. "Hodge, she shouldn't have to go if she doesn't—"  
"It's all right." Pinny took a deep breath. Her palms ached where her nails had cut them, and she wanted badly to lie down somewhere dark and rest. "I'll go. I want to know the truth. I want to know what's in my head."  
Alec nodded once. "Fine. Then I'll go with you."  
Leaving the Institute was like climbing into a wet, hot canvas bag. Humid air pressed down on the city, turning the air to grimy soup. "I don't see why we have to leave separately from Brother Jeremiah," Pinny grumbled. They were standing on the corner outside the Institute. The streets were deserted except for a garbage truck trundling slowly down the block. "What, is he embarrassed to be seen with Shadowhunters or something?"  
"The Brotherhood are Shadowhunters," Alec pointed out. Somehow he managed to look cool despite the heat. It made Pinny want to smack him.  
"I suppose he went to get his car?" she inquired sarcastically.  
Alec grinned. "Something like that."  
She shook her head. "You know, I'd feel a lot better about this if Hodge had come with us."  
"What, I'm not protection enough for you?"  
"It's not protection I need right now—it's someone who can help me think." Suddenly reminded, she clapped a hand over her mouth. "Oh—simon!"  
"No, I'm Alec," said Alec patiently. "Simon is the weak little mundie.""Oh, shut up," she replied, but she didn't knew if it was automatic or heartfelt. "I meant to call before I went to sleep. See if he got home okay."  
Shaking his head, Alec regarded the heavens as if they were about to open up and reveal the secrets of the universe. "With everything that's going on, you're worried about the weak mundie?"  
"Don't call him that. He's not that..."  
"That what?"  
"Weak—"  
"Oh Pinynia." He moaned softly. It sended her high up in the sky.  
"Is something wrong?" Pinny asked.  
Alecthought about this. "Yes, but it's not your bussiness," he said.  
Pinny wondered if he was thinking about her romantically. Maybe he realised, how beautiful, smart and talented she was. Maybe they would start idea filled her with a nameless horror and butterfly's at the same time.  
Lost in thought, it took her several moments to realize that Alec had been saying something to her. When she blinked at him, she saw a wry grin spread across his face. "What?" she asked, ungraciously.  
"The cab."  
As if on cue, a narrow black car with tinted windows rumbled up to the curb and paused in front of Alec, engine purring. It was long and sleek and low to the ground like a limousine, the windows curved outward. Alec stared studying at the cab.  
Then Alec looked at her sideways; there was amusement in his glance, but also a certain urgency. She glanced at the car again, letting her gaze relax, letting the strength of what was real pierce the veil of glamour.  
Now the car looked like Cinderella's carriage, except instead of being pink and gold and blue like an Easter egg, it was black as velvet, its windows darkly tinted. The wheels were black, the leather trimmings all black. On the black metal driver's bench sat Brother Jeremiah, holding a set of reins in his gloved hands. His face was hidden beneath the cowl of his parchment-colored robe. On the other end of the reins were two horses, black as smoke, snarling and pawing at the sky.  
"Get in," said Alec. When she continued to stand there gaping, he took her arm and half-pushed her in through the open door of the carriage, swinging himself up after her. The carriage began to move before he had closed the door behind them. He fell back in his seat—plush and glossily upholstered—and looked over at her. "A personal escort to the Bone City is nothing to turn your nose up at."  
"I wasn't turning my nose up. I was just surprised. I wasn't expecting … I mean, I thought it was a car."  
"Just relax," said Alec. "Enjoy that new-carriage smell."  
Pinny rolled her eyes and turned to look out the windows. She would have thought that a horse and carriage wouldn't have stood a chance in Manhattan traffic, but they were moving downtown easily, their soundless progression unnoticed by the snarl of taxis, buses, and SUVs that choked the avenue. In front of them a yellow cab switched lanes, cutting off their forward progress. Pinny tensed, worried about the horses—then the carriage lurched upward as the horses sprang lightly to the top of the cab. She choked off a gasp. The carriage, rather than dragging along the ground, sailed up behind the horses, rolling lightly and soundlessly up and over the cab's roof and down the other side. Pinny glanced backward as the carriage hit the pavement again with a jolt—the cab driver was smoking and staring ahead, utterly oblivious. "I always thought cab drivers didn't pay attention to traffic, but this is ridiculous," she said weakly.  
"Just because you can see through glamour now …" Alec let the end of the sentence hang delicately in the air between them.  
"I can only see through it when I concentrate," she said. "It hurts my head a little."  
"I bet that's because of the block in your mind. The Brothers will take care of that."  
"Then what?"  
"Then you'll see the world as it is—infinite," said Alec with a dry smile.  
"Don't quote Blake at me."  
The smile turned less dry. "I didn't think you'd recognize it. You don't strike me as someone who reads a lot of poetry."  
"Everyone knows that quote because of the Doors."  
Alec looked at her blankly.  
"The Doors. They were a band."  
"If you say so," he said.  
"I suppose you don't have much time for enjoying music," Pinny said, thinking of Simon and herself, for whom music was our entire life, "in your line of work."He shrugged. "Maybe the occasional wailing chorus of the damned."  
Pinny looked at him quickly, to see if he was joking, but he was expressionless.  
"I like to play the piano," she began, "at the Institute I saw one. Do you know—"  
The carriage lurched upward again. Pinny grabbed at the edge of her seat and stared—they were rolling along the top of a downtown M1 bus. From this vantage point she could see the upper floors of the old apartment buildings that lined the avenue, elaborately carved with gargoyles and ornamental cornices.  
"I can't,"said Alec, without looking at her. "Only Jace plays."  
I hope when dn't die, Pinny thought as the carriage thunked back down to the pavement. "Why didn't you mention to Hodge that you knew the men that Luke was talking to? That they were the ones who killed your dad?"  
Alec looked down at his hands. They were slim and careful hands, the hands of an artist, not a warrior. The ring she had noticed earlier flashed on his finger. She would have thought there would have been something feminine about a boy wearing a ring, but there wasn't. The ring itself was solid and heavy-looking, made of a dark burned-looking silver with a pattern of flames. The letter L was carved into it. "Because if I did," he said, "he'd know I wanted to kill Valentine myself. And he'd never let me try.""You mean you want to kill him for revenge?"  
"For justice," said Alec. "I never knew who killed my father. Now I do. This is my chance to make it right."  
Pinny didn't see how killing one person could make right the death of another, but she sensed there was no point saying that. "But you knew who killed him," she said. "It was those men. You said …"  
Alec wasn't looking at her, so Pinny let her voice trail off. They were rolling through Astor Place now, narrowly dodging a purple New York University tram as it cut through traffic. Passing pedestrians looked crushed by the heavy air, like insects pinned under glass. Some groups of homeless kids were crowded around the base of a big brass statue, folded cardboard signs asking for money propped up in front of them. Pinny saw a girl about her own age with a smoothly shaved bald head leaning against a brown-skinned boy with dreadlocks, his face adorned with a dozen piercings. He turned his head as the carriage rolled by as if he could see it, and she caught the gleam of his eyes. One of them was clouded, as though it had no pupil.  
"I was one," Alec said. She turned to look at him. He was without expression. It always seemed like some color drained out of him when he talked about his father. "We lived in a manor house, close to Idris. He was killed for being a traitor. Mom drew a Mnemosyne rune, so she would forget. It backfired, leaving her with no memory except for her childhood ones. My stepfather Rober adopted me when they were in a relationship. They had always liked each other, but for a Circle mission he had been gone for two and a half years. In that time she began dating with my father. She was in her early pregnancy of Isabelle when it happened. My stepfather doesn't knows who he is, Hodge does. But he doesn't wants to tell."  
It took a moment for Pinny to realize he was done speaking, and another to find her voice. "I'm so sorry, Alec."  
His eyes gleamed in the darkness. "I don't understand why mundanes always apologize for things that aren't their fault.""I'm not apologizing. It's a way of—empathizing. Of saying that I'm sorry you're unhappy."  
"I'm not unhappy," he said.  
"Do you want to kill demons, or get revenge for your father's death because of what happened?"  
"Both."  
"Would your father really want you to kill those men? Just for revenge?"  
"A Shadowhunter who kills another of his brothers is worse than a demon," Alec said, sounding as if he were reciting the words from a textbook.  
"But are all demons evil?" she said. "I mean, if all vampires aren't evil, and all werewolves aren't evil, maybe—"  
Alec turned on her, looking exasperated. "It's not the same thing at all. Vampires, werewolves, even warlocks, they're part human. Part of this world, born in it. They belong here. But demons come from other worlds. They're interdimensional parasites. They come to a world and use it up. They can't build, just destroy—they can't make, only use. They drain a place to ashes and when it's dead, they move on to the next one. It's life they want—not just your life or mine, but all the life of this world, its rivers and cities, its oceans, its everything. And the only thing that stands between them and the destruction of all this"—he pointed outside the window of the carriage, waving his hand as if he meant to indicate everything in the city from the skyscrapers uptown to the clog of traffic on Houston Street—"is the Nephilim."  
"Oh," Pinny said. There didn't seem to be much else to say. "How many other worlds are there?"  
"No one knows. Hundreds? Millions, maybe.""And they're all—dead worlds? Used up?" Pinny felt her stomach drop, though it might have been only the jolt as they rolled up and over a purple Mini. "That seems so sad."  
"I didn't say that." The dark orangey light of city haze spilled in through the window, outlining his sharp profile. "There are probably other living worlds like ours. But only demons can travel between them. Because they're mostly noncorporeal, partly, but nobody knows exactly why. Plenty of warlocks have tried it, and it's never worked. Nothing from Earth can pass through the wardings between the worlds. If we could," he added, "we might be able to block them from coming here, but nobody's even been able to figure out how to do that. In fact, more and more of them are coming through. There used to be only small demon invasions into this world, easily contained. But even in my lifetime more and more of them have spilled in through the wardings. The Clave is always having to dispatch Shadowhunters, and a lot of times they don't come back."  
"But if you had the Mortal Cup, you could make more, right? More demon hunters?" Pinny asked tentatively.  
"Sure," Alec said. "But we haven't had the Cup for years now, and a lot of us die young. So our numbers slowly dwindle."  
"Aren't you, uh …" Pinny searched for the right word. "Reproducing?"  
Alec burst out laughing just as the carriage made a sudden, sharp left turn. He braced himself, but Pinny was thrown against him. He caught her, hands holding her lightly but firmly away from him. She felt the cool impress of his ring like a sliver of ice against her sweaty skin. "Sure," he said. "We love reproducing. It's one of our favorite things." Pinny pulled away from him, her face burning in the darkness, and turned to look out the window. They were rolling toward a heavy wrought-iron gate, trellised with dark vines.  
"We're here," announced Alec as the smooth roll of wheels over pavement turned to the jounce of cobblestones. Pinny glimpsed words across the arch as they rolled under it: NEW YORK CITY MARBLE CEMETERY.  
"But they stopped burying people in Manhattan a century ago because they ran out of room—didn't they?" she said. They were moving down a narrow alley with high stone walls on either side.  
"The Bone City has been here longer than that." The carriage came to a shuddering halt. Pinny jumped as Alec stretched his arm out, but he was only reaching past her to open the door on her side. His arm was lightly muscled and downed with black hairs fine as pollen.  
"You don't get a choice, do you?" she asked. "About being a Shadowhunter. You can't just opt out."  
"No," he said. The door swung open, letting in a blast of muggy air. The carriage had drawn to a stop on a wide square of green grass surrounded by mossy marble walls. "But if I had a choice, this is still what I'd choose."  
"Why?" she asked.  
He raised an eyebrow, which made Pinny instantly jealous. She'd always wanted to be able to do that. "Because," he said. "I don't want to leave my family."  
He jumped down from the carriage. Pinny slid to the edge of her seat, dangling her legs. It was a long drop to the cobblestones. She jumped. The impact stung her feet, but she didn't fall. She swung around in triumph to find Alec watching her. "I would have helped you down," he said.  
She blinked. "It's okay. You didn't have to."He glanced behind him. Brother Jeremiah was descending from his perch behind the horses in a silent fall of robes. He cast no shadow on the sun-baked grass.  
Come, he said. He glided away from the carriage and the comforting lights of Second Avenue, moving toward the dark center of the garden. It was clear that he expected them to follow.  
The grass was dry and crackling underfoot, the marble walls to either side smooth and pearly. There were names carved into the stone of the walls, names and dates. It took Clary a moment to realize that they were grave markers. A chill scraped up her spine. Where were the bodies? In the walls, buried upright as if they'd been walled in alive …?  
She had forgotten to look where she was going. When she collided with something unmistakably alive, she yelped out loud.  
It was Alec. "Don't screech like that. You'll wake the dead."  
She frowned at him. "Why are we stopping?"  
He pointed at Brother Jeremiah, who had come to a halt in front of a statue just slightly taller than he was, its base overgrown with moss. The statue was of an angel. The marble of the statue was so smooth it was almost translucent. The face of the angel was fierce and beautiful and sad. In long white hands the angel held a cup, its rim studded with marble jewels. Something about the statue tickled Pinny's memory with an uneasy familiarity. There was a date inscribed on the base, 1234, and words inscribed around it: NEPHILIM: FACILIS DESCENSUS AVERNO.  
"Is that meant to be the Mortal Cup?" she asked.  
Alec nodded. "And that's the motto of the Nephilim—the Shadowhunters—there on the base."  
"The descent into Hell is easy." he whispered as he caught her questioning gaze.  
"Very, very cheery. Just a ball of fluff existing out of dancing unicorns," said Pinny, but a shiver passed over her skin despite the heat.  
"It's the Brothers' little joke, having that here," said Alec. "You'll see."  
She looked at Brother Jeremiah. He had drawn a stele, faintly glowing, from some inner pocket of his robe, and with the tip he traced the pattern of a rune on the statue's base. The mouth of the stone angel suddenly gaped wide in a silent scream, and a yawning black hole opened in the grassy turf at Jeremiah's feet. It looked like an open grave.  
Slowly Pinny approached the edge of it and peered inside. A set of granite steps led down into the hole, their edges worn soft by years of use. Torches were set along the steps at intervals, flaring hot green and icy blue. The bottom of the stairs was lost in darkness.  
Alec took the stairs with the ease of someone who finds a situation familiar if not exactly comfortable. Halfway to the first torch, he paused and looked up at her. "Come on," he said impatiently.  
Pinny had barely set her foot on the first step when she felt her arm caught in a cold grip. She looked up in astonishment. Brother Jeremiah was holding her wrist, his icy white fingers digging into the skin. She could see the bony gleam of his scarred face beneath the edge of his cowl.  
Do not fear, said his voice inside her head. It would take more than a single human cry to wake these dead.  
When he released her arm, she skittered down the stairs after Alec, her heart pounding against her ribs. He was waiting for her at the foot of the steps. He'd taken one of the green burning torches out of its bracket and was holding it at eye level. It lent a pale green cast to his skin. "You all right?"  
She nodded, not trusting herself to speak. The stairs ended in a shallow landing; ahead of them stretched a tunnel, long and black, ridged with the curling roots of trees. A faint blueish light was visible at the tunnel's end. "It's so … dark," she said lamely.  
"You want me to hold your hand?"  
Pinny put both her hands behind her back like a small child even though she smiled. "Don't talk down to me."  
"Well, I could hardly talk up to you. You're too short." Alec glanced past her, the torch showering sparks as he moved. "No need to stand on ceremony, Brother Jeremiah," he drawled. "Lead on. We'll be right behind you."  
Pinny jumped. She still wasn't used to the archivist's silent comings and goings. He moved noiselessly from where he had been standing behind her and headed into the tunnel. After a moment she followed, and after debating for a while,knocking Alec's outstretched hand aside as she went. But after a while she did began holding onto his arm.  
Pinny's first sight of the Silent City was of row upon row of tall marble arches that rose overhead, disappearing into the distance like the orderly rows of trees in an orchard. The marble itself was a pure, ashy ivory, hard and polished-looking, inset in places with narrow strips of onyx, jasper, and jade. As they moved away from the tunnel and toward the forest of arches, Pinny saw that the floor was inscribed with the same runes that sometimes decorated Alec's skin with lines and whorls and swirling patterns.  
As the three of them passed through the first arch, something large and white loomed up on her left side, like an iceberg off the bow of the Titanic. It was a block of white stone, smooth and square, with a sort of door inset into the front. It reminded her of a child-size playhouse, almost but not quite big enough for her to stand up inside.  
"It's a mausoleum," said Alec, directing a flash of torchlight at it. Pinnyy could see that a rune was carved into the door, which was sealed shut with bolts of iron. "A tomb. We bury our dead here." Suddenly she got a flashback of every time she and Pearl passed a cementery, they would yell, "Hello dead people," and then they would argue about waking up the zombie's.  
"All your dead?" she said, half-wanting to ask him if his father was buried here, but he had already moved ahead, out of earshot. She hurried after him, not wanting to be alone with Brother Jeremiah in this spooky place. "I thought you said this was a library."  
There are many levels to the Silent City, interjected Jeremiah. And not all the dead are buried here. There is another ossuary in Idris, of course, much larger. But on this level are the mausoleums and the place of burning.  
"The place of burning?"  
Those who die in battle are burned, their ashes used to make the marble arches that you see here. The blood and bone of demon slayers is itself a powerful protection against evil. Even in death, the Clave serves the cause.  
How exhausting, Pinny thought, to fight all your life and then be expected to continue that fight even when your life was over. At the edges of her vision she could see the square white vaults rising on either side of her in orderly rows of tombs, each door locked from the outside. She understood now why this was called the Silent City: Its only inhabitants were the mute Brothers and the dead they so zealously guarded.  
They had reached another staircase leading down into more twilight; Alec thrust the torch ahead of him, streaking the walls with shadows. "We're going to the second level, where the archives and the council rooms are," he said, as if to reassure her."Where are the living quarters?" Pinny asked, partly to be polite, partly out of a real curiosity. "Where do the Brothers sleep?"  
Sleep?  
The silent word hung in the darkness between them. Alec laughed and shook his head, and the flame of the torch he held flickered. "You had to ask."  
At the foot of the stairs was another tunnel, which widened out at the end into a square pavilion, each corner of which was marked by a spire of carved bone. Torches burned in long onyx holders along the sides of the square, and the air smelled of ashes and smoke. In the center of the pavilion was a long table of black basalt veined in white. Behind the table, against the dark wall, hung an enormous silver sword, point down, its hilt carved in the shape of outspread wings. Seated at the table was a row of Silent Brothers, each wrapped and cowled in the same parchment-colored robes as Jeremiah.  
Jeremiah wasted no time. We have arrived. Pinynia, stand before the Council.  
Pinny glanced at Alec, but he was blinking, clearly confused. Brother Jeremiah must have spoken only inside her head. She looked at the table, at the long row of silent figures muffled in their heavy robes. Alternating squares made up the pavilion floor: golden bronze and a darker red. Just in front of the table was a larger square, made of black marble and embossed with a parabolic design of silver stars.  
Pinny stepped into the center of the black square as if she were stepping in front of a firing squad. She raised her head. "All right," she said. "Now what?"  
The Brothers made a sound then, a sound that raised the hairs up all along Pinny's neck and the backs of her arms. It was a sound like a sigh or a groan. In unison they raised their hands and pushed their cowls back, baring their scarred faces and the pits of their empty she had seen Brother Jeremiah's uncovered face already, Pinny's stomach knotted. It was like looking at a row of skeletons, like one of those medieval woodcuts where the dead walked and talked and danced on the piled bodies of the living. Their stitched mouths seemed to grin at her.  
The Council greets you, Pinynia Black, she heard, and it was not just one silent voice inside her head but a dozen, some low and rough, some smooth and monotone, but all were demanding, insistent, pushing at the fragile barriers around her mind.  
"Stop," she said, and to her astonishment her voice came out firm and strong. The din inside her mind ceased as suddenly as a record that had stopped spinning. "You can go inside my head," she said, "but only when I'm ready."  
If you do not want our help, there is no need for this. You are the one who asked for our assistance, after all.  
"You want to know what's in my mind, just like I do," she said. "That doesn't mean you can't be careful about it."  
The Brother who sat in the center seat templed his thin white fingers beneath his chin. It is an interesting puzzle, admittedly, he said, and the voice inside her mind was dry and neutral. But there is no need for the use of force, if you do not resist.  
She gritted her teeth. She wanted to resist them, wanted to pry those intrusive voices out of her head. To stand by and allow such a violation of her most intimate, personal self—  
But there was every chance that had already happened, she reminded herself. This was nothing more than the excavation of a past crime, the theft of her memory. If it worked, what had been taken from her would be restored. She closed her eyes.  
"Go ahead," she first contact came as a whisper inside her head, delicate as the brush of a falling leaf. State your name for the Council.  
Pinynia Black.  
The first voice was joined by others. Who are you?  
I'm Pinny. My mother is Pearl Black. I live at 807 Berkeley Place in Brooklyn. I am fifteen years old. My father's name was—  
Her mind seemed to snap in on itself, like a rubber band, and she reeled soundlessly into a whirlwind of images cast against the insides of her closed eyelids. Her mother was hurrying her down a night-black street between piles of heaped and dirty snow. Then a lowering sky, gray and leaden, rows of black trees stripped bare. An empty square cut into the earth, a plain coffin lowered into it. Ashes to ashes. Pearl wrapped in her patchwork quilt, tears spilling down her cheeks, quickly closing a box and shoving it under a cushion as Pinny came into the room. She saw the initials on the box again: J. C.  
The images came faster now, like the pages of one of those books where the drawings seemed to move when you flipped them. Clary stood on top of a flight of stairs, looking down a narrow corridor, and there was Luke again, his green duffel bag at his feet. Pearl stood in front of him, shaking her head. "Why now, Lucian? I thought that you were dead …" Pinny blinked; Luke looked different, almost a stranger, bearded, his hair long and tangled—and branches came down to block her view; she was in the park again, and green faeries, tiny as toothpicks, buzzed among the red flowers. She reached for one in delight, and her mother swung her up into her arms with a cry of terror. Then it was winter on the black street again, and they were hurrying, huddled under an umbrella, Pearl half-pushing and half-dragging Pinny between the looming banks of snow. A granite doorway loomed up out of the falling whiteness; there were words carved above the door: THE MAGNIFICENT. Then she was standing inside an entryway that smelled of iron and melting snow. Her fingers were numb with cold. A hand under her chin directed her to look up, and she saw a row of words scrawled along the wall. Two words leaped out at her, burning into her eyes: MAGNUS BANE.  
A sudden pain lanced through her right arm. She shrieked as the images fell away and she spun upward, breaking the surface of consciousness like a diver breaking up through a wave. There was something cold pressed against her cheek. She pried her eyes open and saw silver stars. She blinked twice before she realized that she was lying on the marble floor, her knees curled up to her chest. When she moved, hot pain shot up her arm.  
She sat up gingerly. The skin over her left elbow was split and bleeding. She must have landed on it when she fell. There was blood on her shirt. She looked around, disoriented, and saw Alec looking at her, unmoving but very tense around the mouth.  
Magnus Bane. The words meant something, but what? Before she could ask the question aloud, Jeremiah interrupted her.  
The block inside your mind is stronger than we had anticipated, he said. It can be safely undone only by the one who put it there. For us to remove it would be to kill you.  
She scrambled to her feet, cradling her injured arm. "But I don't know who put it there. If I knew that, I wouldn't have come here."  
The answer to that is woven into the thread of your thoughts, said Brother Jeremiah. In your waking dream you saw it written.  
"Magnus Bane? But—that's not even a name!"  
It is enough. Brother Jeremiah got to his feet. As if this were a signal, the rest of the Brothers rose alongside him. They inclined their heads toward Jace, a gesture of silent acknowledgment, before they filed away among the pillars and were gone. Only Brother Jeremiah remained. He watched impassively as Alec hurried over to Pinny.  
"Is your arm all right? Let me see," he demanded, seizing her wrist.  
"Ouch! It's fine. Don't do that; you're making it worse," Pinny said, trying to pull away.  
"You bled on the Speaking Stars," he said. Alec looked and saw that he was right: There was a smear of her blood on the white and silver marble. "I bet there's a law somewhere about that." He turned her arm over, more gently than she would have thought he was capable of. He caught his lower lip between his teeth and whistled; she glanced down and saw that a glove of blood covered her lower arm from the elbow to the wrist. The arm was throbbing, stiff, and painful.  
"Is this when you start tearing strips off your T-shirt to bind up my wound?" she joked. She hated the sight of blood, especially her own.  
"Nope, guess we save that for another time." He dug into his pocket and brought out his stele.  
Remembering the stinging sensation when the stele had touched her wrist, she braced herself, but all she felt as the glowing instrument glided lightly over her injury was a faint warmth. "There," he said, straightening up. Pinny flexed her arm in wonder—though the blood was still there, the wound was gone, as were the pain and stiffness. "And next time you're planning to injure yourself to get my attention, just remember that a little sweet talk works wonders."  
Pinny felt her mouth twitch into a smile. "I'll keep that in mind," she said. And as he turned away, she added, "And thanks."  
He slid the stele into his back pocket without turning to look at her, but she thought she saw a certain gratification in the set of his shoulders. "Brother Jeremiah," he said, rubbing his hands together, you've been very quiet all this time. Surely you have some thoughts you'd like to share?"  
I am charged with leading you from the Silent City, and that is all, said the archivist. Pinnywondered if she were imagining it, or if there was actually a faintly affronted tone to his "voice."  
"We could always show ourselves out," Alec suggested hopefully. "I'm sure I remember the way—"  
The marvels of the Silent City are not for the eyes of the uninitiated, said Jeremiah, and he turned his back on them with a soundless swish of robes. This way.  
When they emerged into the open, Pinny took deep breaths of the thick morning air, relishing the city stench of smog, dirt, and humanity. Alec looked around thoughtfully. "It's going to rain," he said. He gently placed a hand on her shoulder.  
He was right, Pinny thought, looking up at the iron-gray sky. "Are we taking a carriage back to the Institute?"  
Alec looked from Brother Jeremiah, still as a statue, to the carriage, looming like a black shadow in the archway that led to the street. Then he broke into a grin.  
"No way," he said. "Nope. One cab please."


	11. Chapter 11

11  
MAGNUS BANE  
Alec leaned forward and banged his hand against the partition separating them from the cab driver. "Turn left! Left! I said to take Broadway, you brain-dead moron!"  
The taxi driver responded by jerking the wheel so hard to the left that Pinny was thrown against Alec. She let out a yelp of resentment. "Why are we taking Broadway, anyway?"  
"I'm starving," Alec said. "And there's nothing at home except leftover Chinese." He took his phone out of his pocket and started dialing. "Jace! Wake up!" he shouted. Pinny could hear an irritated buzzing on the other end. "Meet us at Taki's. Breakfast. Yeah, you heard me. Breakfast. What? It's only a few blocks away. Get going."  
He clicked off and shoved the phone into one of his many pockets as they pulled up to a curb. Handing the driver a wad of bills, Alec elbowed Pinny out of the car. When he landed on the pavement behind her, he stretched like a cat and spread his arms wide. "Welcome to the greatest restaurant in New York."  
It didn't look like much—a low brick building that sagged in the middle like a collapsed soufflé. A battered neon sign proclaiming the restaurant's name hung sideways and was sputtering. Two men in long coats and tipped-forward felt hats slouched in front of the narrow doorway. There were no windows.  
"It looks like a prison," said Pinny.  
He pointed at her. "But in prison could you order a spaghetti fra diavolo that makes you want to kiss your fingers? I don't think so."  
"I don't want spaghetti. I want to know what a Magnus Bane is."  
"It's not a what. It's a who," said Alec. "It's a name."  
"Do you know who he is?"  
"He's a warlock," said Jace in his most reasonable voice. "Only a warlock could have put a block in your mind like that. Or maybe one of the Silent Brothers, but clearly it wasn't them."  
"Is he a warlock you've heard of?" demanded Pinny, who was rapidly tiring of Alec's reasonable voice.  
"The name does sound familiar—"  
"Hey!" It was Jace, looking like he'd rolled out of bed and pulled jeans on over his pajamas. His hair, unbrushed, stuck out wildly around his head. He loped toward them, eyes on Alec, ignoring Pinny for the moment. "Izzy's on her way," he said. "She's bringing the mundane."  
"Simon? Where did he come from?" Alec asked.  
"He showed up first thing this morning. Couldn't stay away from Izzy, I guess. Pathetic." Jace sounded amused. Pinny wanted to kick him. "Anyway, are we going in or what? I'm starving."  
"Me too," said Alec. "I could really go for some fried mouse tails." Winking at Pinny as he and Jace laughed,  
"Some what?" asked Pinny, sure that she'd heard wrong.  
Jace grinned at her. "Relax," he said. "It's just a diner." they were stopped at the front door by one of the slouching men. As he straightened, Pinny caught a glimpse of his face under the hat. His skin was dark red, his squared-off hands ending in blue-black nails. Clary felt herself stiffen, but Jace and Alec seemed unconcerned. They said something to the man, who nodded and stepped back, allowing them to pass.  
"Alec," Clary hissed as the door shut behind them. "Who was that?"  
"You mean Clancy?" Alec asked, glancing around the brightly lit restaurant. It was pleasant inside, despite the lack of windows. Cozy wooden booths nestled up against each other, each one lined with brightly colored cushions. Endearingly mismatched crockery lined the counter, behind which stood a blond girl in a waitress's pink-and-white apron, nimbly counting out change to a stocky man in a flannel shirt. She saw Jace, waved, and gestured that they should sit wherever they wanted. "Clancy keeps out undesirables," said Jace, herding her to one of the booths.  
"He's a demon," she hissed. Several customers turned to look at her—a boy with spiky blue dreads was sitting next to a beautiful Indian girl with long black hair and gauzelike golden wings sprouting from her back. The boy frowned darkly. Pinny was glad the restaurant was almost empty.  
"No, he isn't," said Jace, sliding into a booth. Pinny moved to sit beside him, but Alec was already there. She settled gingerly onto the booth seat opposite them, her arm still stiff despite Alec's ministrations. She felt hollow inside, as if the Silent Brothers had reached into her and scooped out her insides, leaving her light and dizzy. "He's an ifrit," Jace explained. "They're warlocks with no magic. Half demons who can't cast spells for whatever reason."  
"Poor bastards," said Alec, picking up his menu. Pinny picked hers up too, and stared. Locusts and honey were featured as a special, as were plates of raw meat, whole raw fish, and something called a toasted bat sandwich. A page of the beverage section was devoted to the different types of blood they had on tap—to Clary's relief, they were different kinds of animal blood, rather than type A, type O, or type B-negative.  
"Who eats whole raw fish?" she inquired aloud.  
"Kelpies," said Alec. "Selkies. Maybe the occasional nixie."  
"Don't order any of the faerie food," said Jace, looking at her over the top of his menu. "It tends to make humans a little crazy. One minute you're munching a faerie plum, the next minute you're running naked down Madison Avenue with antlers on your head. Not," he added hastily, "that this has ever happened to me."  
Alec laughed. "Do you remember—" he began, and launched into a story that contained so many mysterious names and proper nouns that Clary didn't even bother trying to follow it. She was looking at Alec instead, watching him as he talked to Jace. There was a kinetic, almost feverish energy to him that hadn't been there before. Something about Jace sharpened him, brought him into focus. If she were going to draw them together, she thought, she would make Jace a little blurry, while Alec stood out, all sharp, clear planes and angles.  
Jace was looking down as Alec spoke, smiling a little, looking quite dreamy and tapping his water glass with a fingernail. She sensed he was thinking of something. She felt a sudden flash of sympathy for Alec. Jace was weirdly looking at Alec.  
I was laughing at you because declarations of love amuse me, especially when unrequited.  
Jace looked up as the waitress passed. "Are we ever going to get any coffee?" he said aloud, interrupting Alec midsentence.  
Alec subsided, his energy fading. "I …"Pinny spoke up hastily. "What's all the raw meat for?" she asked, indicating the third page of her menu.  
"Werewolves," said Jace. "Though I don't mind a bloody steak myself every once in a while." He reached across the table and flipped Pinny's menu over. "Human food is on the back."  
She perused the perfectly ordinary menu selections with a feeling of stupefaction. It was all too much. "They have smoothies here?"  
"There's this apricot-plum smoothie with wildflower honey that's simply divine," said Isabelle, who had appeared with Simon at her side. "Shove over," she said to Pinny, who scooted so close to the wall that she could feel the cold bricks pressing into her arm. Simon, sliding in next to Isabelle, offered her a half-embarrassed smile that she didn't return. "You should have one."  
Pinny wasn't sure if Isabelle was talking to her or to Simon, so she said nothing. Isabelle's hair tickled her face, smelling of some kind of vanilla perfume. Pinny fought the urge to sneeze. She hated vanilla perfume. She'd never understood why some girls felt the need to smell like dessert.  
"So how did it go at the Bone City?" Isabelle asked, flipping her menu open. "Did you find out what's in Pinny's head?"  
"We got a name," said Alec. "Magnus—"  
"Shut up," Jace hissed, thwacking Alec with his closed menu.  
Alec looked injured. "Jesus." He rubbed his arm. "What's your problem?"  
"This place is full of Downworlders. You know that. What if they are spies."  
"Spies?" Isabelle laughed. "Now we're detectives? Maybe we should all have code names."  
"Good idea," said Jace. "I shall be Baron Hotschaft Von Hugenstein."Alec spit his water back into his glass. At that moment the waitress arrived to take their order. Up close she was still a pretty blond girl, but her eyes were unnerving—entirely blue, with no white or pupil at all. She smiled with sharp little teeth. "Know what you're having?"  
Jace grinned. "The usual," he said, and got a smile from the waitress in return.  
"Me too," Alec chimed in, though he didn't get the smile. Isabelle fastidiously ordered a fruit smoothie, Simon asked for coffee, and Pinny, after a moment's hesitation, chose a large coffee and coconut pancakes. The waitress winked a blue eye at her and flounced off.  
"Is she an ifrit too?" Pinny asked, watching her go.  
"Kaelie? No. Part fey, I think," said Jace.  
"She's got nixie eyes," said Isabelle thoughtfully.  
"You really don't know what she is?" asked Simon.  
Jace shook his head. "I respect her privacy." He nudged Alec. "Hey, let me out for a second."  
Scowling, Alec moved aside. Pinny watched Jace as he strode over to Kaelie, who was leaning against the bar, talking to the cook through the pass-through to the kitchen. All Pinny could see of the cook was a bent head in a white chef's hat. Tall furry ears poked through holes cut into either side of the hat.  
Kaelie turned to smile at Jace, who put an arm around her. She snuggled in. Pinny wondered if this was what Jace meant by respecting her privacy.  
Isabelle rolled her eyes. "He really shouldn't tease the waitstaff like that."  
Alec looked at her. "You don't think he means it? That he likes her, I mean."  
Isabelle shrugged. "She's a Downworlder," she said, as if that explained everything.  
"I don't get it," said Pinny. Isabelle glanced at her without interest. "Get what?"  
"This whole Downworlder thing. You don't hunt them, because they aren't exactly demons, but they're not exactly people, either. Vampires kill; they drink blood—"  
"Only rogue vampires drink human blood from living people," interjected Alec. "And those, we're allowed to kill."  
"And werewolves are what? Just overgrown puppies?"  
"They kill demons," said Isabelle. "So if they don't bother us, we don't bother them."  
Like letting spiders live because they eat mosquitoes, Pinny thought. "So they're good enough to let live, good enough to make your food for you, good enough to flirt with—but not really good enough? I mean, not as good as people."  
Isabelle and Alec looked at her as if she were speaking Urdu. "Different from people," said Alec finally.  
"Better than mundanes?" said Simon.  
"No," Isabelle said decidedly. "You could turn a mundane into a Shadowhunter. I mean, we came from mundanes. But you could never turn a Downworlder into one of the Clave. They can't withstand the runes."  
"So they're weak?" asked Pinny.  
"I wouldn't say that," said Jace, sliding back into his seat next to Alec. His hair was mussed and there was a lipstick mark on his cheek. "At least not with a peri, a djinn, an ifrit, and God knows what else listening in." He grinned as Kaelie appeared and distributed their food. Pinnyy regarded her pancakes consideringly. They looked fantastic: golden brown, drenched with liquid sugar. She took a bite as Kaelie wobbled off on her high heels. They were delicious.  
"I told you it was the greatest restaurant in Manhattan," said Jace, eating fries with his fingers.  
She glanced at Simon, who was stirring his coffee, head down.  
"Mmmf," said Alec, whose mouth was full.  
"Right," said Jace. He looked at Pinny. "It's not one-way," he said. "We may not always like Downworlders, but they don't always like us, either. A few hundred years of the Accords can't wipe out a thousand years of hostility."  
"I'm sure she doesn't know what the Accords are, Jace," said Isabelle around her spoon.  
"I do, actually," said Pinny.  
"I don't," said Simon.  
"Yes, but nobody cares what you know." Jace examined a fry before biting into it. "I enjoy the company of certain Downworlders at certain times and places. But we don't really get invited to the same parties."  
"Wait." Isabelle suddenly sat up straight. "What did you say that name was?" she demanded, turning to Alec. "The name in Pinny's head."  
"I didn't," said Jace. "It's Magnus Bane." He grinned at Jace mockingly.  
Pinny smiled inwardly.  
"It can't be—but I'm almost totally sure—" Isabelle dug into her purse and pulled out a folded piece of blue paper. She wiggled it between her fingers. "Look at this." Alec held out his hand for the paper, glanced at it with a shrug, and handed it to Jace. "It's a party invitation. For somewhere in Brooklyn," he said. "I hate Brooklyn." That was a stab in the heart. Three points for Alexander Lightwood.  
"Don't be such a snob," said Jace. Then, just as Isabelle had, he sat up straight and stared. "Where did you get this, Izzy?"  
She fluttered her hand airily. "From that kelpie in Pandemonium. He said it would be awesome. He had a whole stack of them."  
"What is it?" Pinny demanded impatiently. "Are you going to show the rest of us, or not?"  
Jace turned it around so they could all read it. It was printed on thin paper, nearly parchment, in a thin, elegant, spidery hand. It announced a gathering at the humble home of Magnus the Magnificent Warlock, and promised attendees "a rapturous evening of delights beyond your wildest imaginings."  
"Magnus," said Simon. "Magnus like Magnus Bane?"  
"I doubt there are that many warlocks named Magnus in the Tristate Area," said Jace.  
Alec blinked at it. "Does that mean we have to go to the party?" he inquired of no one in particular.  
"We don't have to do anything," said Jace, who was reading the fine print on the invitation. "But according to this, Magnus Bane is the High Warlock of Brooklyn." He looked at Pinny. "I, for one, am a little curious as to what the High Warlock of Brooklyn's name is doing inside your head."  
The party didn't start until midnight, so with a whole day to kill, Jace and Alec disappeared to the weapons room and Isabelle and Simon announced their intention of going for a walk in Central Park so that she could show him the faerie circles. Simon asked Pinny if she wanted to come along. Stifling a murderous rage, she refused on the grounds of exhaustion.  
It wasn't exactly a lie—she was exhausted, her body still weakened from the aftereffects of the poison and the too-early rising. She lay on her bed in the Institute, shoes kicked off, willing herself to sleep, but sleep wouldn't come. The caffeine in her veins fizzed like carbonated water, and her mind was full of darting images. She kept seeing her mother's face looking down at her, her expression panicked. Kept seeing the Speaking Stars, hearing the voices of the Silent Brothers in her head. Why would there be a block in her mind? Why would a powerful warlock have put it there, and to what purpose? She wondered what memories she might have lost, what experiences she'd had that she couldn't now recall. Or maybe everything she thought she did remember was a lie …?  
She sat up, no longer able to bear where her thoughts were taking her. Barefoot, she padded out into the corridor and toward the library. Maybe Hodge could help her.  
But the library was empty. Afternoon light slanted in through the parted curtains, laying bars of gold across the floor. On the desk lay the book Hodge had read out of earlier, its worn leather cover gleaming. Beside it Hugo slept on his perch, beak tucked under wing.  
My mother knew that book, Pinny thought. She touched it, read out of it. The ache to hold something that was a part of her mother's life felt like a gnawing at the pit of her stomach. She crossed the room hastily and laid her hands on the book. It felt warm, the leather heated by sunlight. She raised the cover.  
Something folded slid out from between the pages and fluttered to the floor at her feet. She bent to retrieve it, smoothing it open was the photograph of a group of young people, none much older than Pinny herself. She knew it had been taken at least twenty years ago, not because of the clothes they were wearing—which, like most Shadowhunter gear, were nondescript and black—but because she recognized her mother instantly: Pearl, no more than seventeen or eighteen, her hair halfway down her back and her face a little rounder, the chin and mouth less defined.  
Pearl's arm was around a boy Pinny didn't recognize. It gave her a jolt. She'd never thought of her mother being involved with anyone other than her father, since Pearl had never dated or seemed interested in romance. She wasn't like most single mothers, who trolled PTA meetings for likely-looking dads, or Simon's mom, who was always checking her profile on JDate. The boy was good-looking, with hair so fair it was nearly white, and black eyes.  
"That's Valentine," said a voice at her elbow. "When he was seventeen."  
She leaped back, almost dropping the photo. Hugo gave a startled and unhappy caw before settling back down on his perch, feathers ruffled.  
It was Hodge, looking at her with curious eyes.  
"I'm so sorry," she said, setting the photograph down on the desk and backing hastily away. "I didn't mean to pry into your things."  
"It's all right." He touched the photograph with a scarred and weathered hand—a strange contrast to the neat spotlessness of his tweed cuffs. "It's a piece of your past, after all."  
Pinny drifted back toward the desk as if the photo exerted a magnetic pull. The white-haired boy in the photo was smiling at Pearl, his eyes crinkled in that way that boys' eyes crinkled when they really liked you. Nobody, Pinny thought, had ever looked at her that way. Valentine, with his cold, fine-featured face, looked absolutely unlike her own father, with his open smile and the curly hair she'd inherited. "Valentine looks … sort of nice."  
"Nice he wasn't," said Hodge, with a twisted smile, "but he was charming and clever and very persuasive. Do you recognize anyone else?"  
She looked again. Standing behind Valentine, a little to the left, was a thin boy with a shock of light brown hair. He had the big shoulders and gawky wrists of someone who hadn't grown into his height yet. "Is that you?"  
Hodge nodded. "And …?"  
She had to look twice before she identified someone else she knew: so young as to be nearly unrecognizable. In the end his glasses gave him away, and the eyes behind them, light blue as seawater. "Luke," she said.  
"Lucian. And here." Leaning over the photo, Hodge indicated an elegant-looking teenage couple, both dark-haired, the girl half a head taller than the boy. Her features were narrow and predatory, almost cruel. "The Lightwoods before they became a couple," he said. "And there"—he indicated a very handsome boy with curling dark hair, high color in his square-jawed face—"is Jace's father."  
"He doesn't look anything like Jace."  
"Jace resembles his mother."  
"Is this, like, a class photo?" Pinny asked.  
"Not quite. This is a picture of the Circle, taken in the year it was formed. That's why Valentine, the leader, is in the front, and Luke is on his right side—he was Valentine's second in command."  
Pinny turned her gaze away. "I still don't understand why my mother would join something like that."  
"You must understand—""You keep saying that," Pinny said crossly. "I don't see why I must understand anything. You tell me the truth, and I'll either understand it or I won't."  
The corner of Hodge's mouth twitched. "As you say." He paused to reach out a hand and stroke Hugo, who was strutting along the edge of the desk importantly. "The Accords have never had the support of the whole Clave. The more venerable families, especially, cling to the old times, when Downworlders were for killing. Not just out of hatred but because it made them feel safer. It is easier to confront a threat as a mass, a group, not individuals who must be evaluated one by one … and most of us knew someone who had been injured or killed by a Downworlder. There is nothing," he added, "quite like the moral absolutism of the young. It's easy, as a child, to believe in good and evil, in light and dark. Valentine never lost that—neither his destructive idealism nor his passionate loathing of anything he considered 'nonhuman.'"  
"But he loved my mother," said Pinny.  
"Yes. He loved your mother. And he loved Idris …."  
"What was so fucking great about Idris anyway?" Pinny asked, hearing the grumpiness in her own voice.  
"It was," Hodge began, and corrected himself, "it is home—for the Nephilim, where they can be their true selves, a place where there is no need for hiding or glamour. A place blessed by the Angel. You have never seen a city until you have seen Alicante of the glass towers. It is more beautiful than you can imagine." There was raw pain in his voice.  
Pinny thought suddenly of her dream. "Were there ever … dances in the Glass City?"  
Hodge blinked at her as if waking up from a dream. "Every week. I never attended, but your mother did. And Valentine." He chuckled softly. "I was more of a scholar. I spent my days in the library in Alicante. The books you see here are only a fraction of the treasures it holds. I thought perhaps I might join the Brotherhood someday, but after what I did, of course, they would not have me."  
"I'm sorry," Pinny said awkwardly. Her mind was still full of the memory of her dream. Was there a mermaid fountain where they danced? Did Valentine wear white, so that my mother could see the Marks on his skin even through his shirt?  
"Can I keep this?" she asked, indicating the photograph.  
A flicker of hesitation passed over Hodge's face. "I would prefer you not show it to Jace," he said. "He has enough to contend with, without photos of his dead father turning up."  
"Of course." She hugged it to her chest. "Thank you."  
"It's nothing." He looked at her quizzically. "Did you come to the library to see me, or for some other purpose?"  
"I was wondering if you'd heard from the Clave. About the Cup. And—my mom."  
"I got a short reply this morning."  
She could hear the eagerness in her own voice. "Have they sent people? Shadowhunters?"  
Hodge looked away from her. "Yes, they have."  
"Why aren't they staying here?" she asked.  
"There is some concern that the Institute is being watched by Valentine. The less he knows, the better." He saw her miserable expression, and sighed. "I'm sorry I can't tell you more, Pinynia. I am not much trusted by the Clave, even now. They told me very little. I wish I could help you."  
There was something about the sadness in his voice that made her reluctant to push him for more information. "You can," she said. "I can't sleep. I keep thinking too much. Could you …""Ah, the unquiet mind." His voice was full of sympathy. "I can give you something for that. Wait here."  
The potion Hodge gave her smelled pleasantly of juniper and leaves. Pinnyy kept opening the vial and smelling it on her way back down the corridor. It was unfortunately still open when she entered her bedroom and found Alec sprawled out on the bed, looking at her sketchbook. With a little shriek of astonishment, she dropped the vial; it bounced across the floor, spilling pale green liquid onto the hardwood.  
"Oh, dear," said Alec, sitting up, the sketchbook abandoned. "I hope that wasn't anything important."  
"It was a sleeping potion," she said angrily, toeing the vial with the tip of a sneaker. "And now it's gone."  
"If only Simon were here. He could probably bore you to sleep."  
Pinny was not in the mood to defend Simon. Instead she sat down on the bed, picking up the sketchbook. "I don't usually let people look at this."  
"Why not?" Alec looked tousled, as if he'd been asleep himself. "You're a pretty good artist. Sometimes even excellent."  
"Well, because—it's like a diary. Except I don't think in words, I think in pictures, so it's all drawings. But it's still private." She wondered if she sounded as crazy as she suspected.  
Alec looked wounded. "I am sorry, I did not wish to disturb your privacy, but I had been way to curious."  
"I don't mind. For this once." Pinny said quietly.  
"BTW, you could try not being charming all the time," Pinny said. "It might be a relief for everyone."  
He looked down at his hands. They were like Hodge's hands already, snowflaked with tiny white scars, though the skin was young and unlined. "I'm charming?"  
She looked at him. "Are you serious?"  
"Yes."  
"Well, you always behave or as an asshole or as a first class shy gentleman."  
"Didn't knew , sweet, sweet, Pinynia, do you want to have a bedtime story?"  
She wondered if being tired had made them both a little crazy. But Alec didn't look tired. He looked almost sad. She set the sketchbook down on the night table, and lay down, curling sideways on the pillow. "Okay."  
"Close your eyes."  
She closed them. She could see the afterimage of lamplight reflected against her inner lids, like tiny starbursts.  
"Once there was a boy," said Alec.  
Pinny interrupted immediately. "A Shadowhunter boy?"  
"Of course." For a moment a bleak amusement colored his voice. Then it was gone. "When the boy was six years old, his father gave him a falcon to train. Falcons are raptors—killing birds, his father told him, the Shadowhunters of the sky.  
"The falcon didn't like the boy, and the boy didn't like it, either. Its sharp beak made him nervous, and its bright eyes always seemed to be watching him. It would slash at him with beak and talons when he came near: For weeks his wrists and hands were always bleeding. He didn't know it, but his father had selected a falcon that had lived in the wild for over a year, and thus was nearly impossible to tame. But the boy tried, because his father had told him to make the falcon obedient, and he wanted to please his father.  
"He stayed with the falcon constantly, keeping it awake by talking to it and even playing music to it, because a tired bird was meant to be easier to tame. He learned the equipment: the jesses, the hood, the brail, the leash that bound the bird to his wrist. He was meant to keep the falcon blind, but he couldn't bring himself to do it—instead he tried to sit where the bird could see him as he touched and stroked its wings, willing it to trust him. He fed it from his hand, and at first it would not eat. Later it ate so savagely that its beak cut the skin of his palm. But the boy was glad, because it was progress, and because he wanted the bird to know him, even if the bird had to consume his blood to make that happen.  
"He began to see that the falcon was beautiful, that its slim wings were built for the speed of flight, that it was strong and swift, fierce and gentle. When it dived to the ground, it moved like light. When it learned to circle and come to his wrist, he nearly shouted with delight. Sometimes the bird would hop to his shoulder and put its beak in his hair. He knew his falcon loved him, and when he was certain it was not just tamed but perfectly tamed, he went to his father and showed him what he had done, expecting him to be proud.  
"Instead his father took the bird, now tame and trusting, in his hands and broke its neck. 'I told you to make it obedient,' his father said, and dropped the falcon's lifeless body to the ground. 'Instead, you taught it to love you. Falcons are not meant to be loving pets: They are fierce and wild, savage and cruel. This bird was not tamed; it was broken.'  
"Later, when his father left him, the boy cried over his pet, until eventually his father sent a servant to take the body of the bird away and bury it. The boy never cried again, and he never forgot what he'd learned: that to love is to destroy, and that to be loved is to be the one destroyed."  
Pinny, who had been lying still, hardly breathing, rolled onto her back and opened her eyes. "That's an awful story," she said indignantly.  
Alec had his legs pulled up, his chin on his knees. "Is it?" he said ruminatively.  
"The boy's father is horrible. It's a story about child abuse. I should have known that's what Shadowhunters think a bedtime story is like. Anything that gives you screaming nightmares—"  
"Sometimes the Marks can give you screaming nightmares," said Alec. "If you get them when you're too young." He looked at her thoughtfully. The late afternoon light came in through the curtains and made his face a study in contrasts. Chiaroscuro, she thought. The art of shadows and light. "It is a story Jace once told me. Sorry, I couldn't think of anything else."  
"I don't mind it much. Next time, pink piggy's in tutu's," said Pinny with a yawn. Despite the story's content, the rhythm of Alec's voice had made her sleepy. "Pink piggy's in tutu's?"  
"Momma always told me stories about them as a little kid," she whispered tiredly.  
"Go to sleep,"said Alec firmly. He reached out, and she felt the back of his hand brush her cheek; she realized her eyes were slipping shut. Exhaustion made her bones liquid; she felt as if she might wash away and vanish.  
"Alec," she tried to say. But sleep had her in its claws; it drew her down, and she was silent.  
She was woken by an urgent voice. "Get up!"Pinny opened her eyes slowly. They felt gluey, stuck together. Something was tickling her face. It was someone's hair. She sat up quickly, and her head struck something hard.  
"Ow! You hit me in the head!" It was a girl's voice. Isabelle. She flicked on the light next to the bed and regarded Pinny resentfully, rubbing at her scalp. She seemed to shimmer in the lamplight—she was wearing a long silvery skirt and a sequined top, and her nails were painted like glittering coins. Strands of silver beads were caught in her dark hair. She looked like a moon goddess. Pinny hated her.  
"Well, nobody told you to lean over me like that. You practically scared me to death." Pinny rubbed at her own head. There was a sore spot just above her eyebrow. "What do you want, anyway?"  
Isabelle indicated the dark night sky outside. "It's almost midnight. We've got to leave for the party, and you're still not dressed."  
"I was just going to wear this," Pinny said, indicating her jeans and T-shirt ensemble. "Is that a problem?"  
"Is that a problem?" Isabelle looked like she might faint. "Of course it's a problem! No Downworlder would wear those clothes. And it's a party. You'll stick out like a sore thumb if you dress that … casually," she finished, looking as if the word she'd wanted to use was a lot worse than "casually."  
"I didn't know we were dressing up," Pinny said sourly. "I don't have any party clothes with me."  
"You'll just have to borrow mine."  
"Oh no." Pinny thought of the too-big T-shirt and jeans. "I mean, I couldn't. Really."  
Isabelle's smile was as glittering as her nails. "I insist.""I'd really rather wear my own clothes," Pinny protested, squirming uncomfortably as Isabelle positioned her in front of the floor-length mirror in her bedroom.  
"Well, you can't," Isabelle said. "You look about eight years old, and worse, you look like a mundane."  
Pinny set her jaw rebelliously. "None of your clothes are going to fit me."  
"We'll see about that."  
Pinny watched Isabelle in the mirror as she riffled through her closet. Her room looked as if a disco ball had exploded inside it. The walls were black and shimmered with swirls of sponged-on golden paint. Clothes were strewn everywhere: on the rumpled black bed, hung over the backs of the wooden chairs, spilling out of the closet and the tall wardrobe propped against one wall. Her vanity table, its mirror rimmed with spangled pink fur, was covered in glitter, sequins, and pots of blush and powder.  
"Nice room," Pinny said, thinking longingly of her blue and green walls at home.  
"Thanks. I painted it myself." Isabelle emerged from the closet, holding something black and slinky. She tossed it at Pinny.  
Pinny held the cloth up, letting it unfold. "It looks awfully small."  
"It's stretchy," said Isabelle. "Now go put it on."  
Hastily, PInny retreated to the small bathroom, which was painted bright blue. "Wait a sec, Izzy, this looks just like my own corset!" "It is, that top in corset style is just amazing, pair it with my skirt and you will look dazzling."  
Trying not to inhale too deeply, she returned to the bedroom, where Isabelle was sitting on the bed, sliding a set of jeweled toe rings onto her sandaled feet. "Here's a bra," She threw one at Pinny.  
Pinny scowled as she put the bra on and re-did her top. "It's too short.""It's not short. It's fine," Isabelle said, toeing around under the bed. She kicked out a pair of boots and some black fishnet tights. "Here, you can wear these with it. They'll make you look taller."  
"Right, because I'm a fucking midget." Pinny tugged the hem of the skirt down. It just brushed the tops of her thighs. She hardly ever wore skirts, much less short ones, so seeing this much of her own legs was alarming. "If it's this short on me, how short must it be on you?" she mused aloud to Isabelle.  
Isabelle grinned. "On me it's underwear."  
Pinny flopped down on the bed and pulled the tights and boots on. The shoes were a little loose around the calves, but didn't slide around on her feet. She laced them to the top and stood up, looking at herself in the mirror. She had to admit that the combination of short black skirt, corset top, fishnets, and high boots was fairly badass. The only thing that spoiled it was—  
"Your hair," Isabelle said. "It needs fixing. Desperately. Sit." She pointed imperiously toward the vanity table. Pinny sat, and squinched her eyes shut as Isabelle yanked her hair out of its braids—none too kindly—brushed it out, and shoved what felt like bobby pins into it. She opened her eyes just as a powder puff smacked her in the face, releasing a dense cloud of glitter. Pinny coughed and glared at Isabelle accusingly.  
The other girl laughed. "Don't look at me. Look at yourself."  
Glancing in the mirror, Pinny saw that Isabelle had pulled her hair up into an elegant swirl on the top of her head, held in place with sparkling pins. Clary was reminded suddenly of her dream, the heavy hair weighing her head down, dancing with Simon … She stirred restlessly.  
"Don't get up yet," Isabelle said. "We're not done." She seized an eyeliner pen. "Open your eyes."Pinny widened her eyes, which was good for keeping herself from crying. "Isabelle, can I ask you something?"  
"Sure," said Isabelle, wielding the eyeliner expertly.  
"Is Jace bisexual?"  
Isabelle's wrist jerked. The eyeliner skidded, inking a long line of black from the corner of Pinny's eye to her hairline. "Oh, hell," Isabelle said, putting the pen down.  
"It's all right," Pinny began, putting her hand up to her eye.  
"No, it isn't." Isabelle sounded near tears as she scrabbled around among the piles of junk on top of the vanity. Eventually she came up with a cotton ball, which she handed to Pinny. "Here. Use this." She sat down on the edge of the bed, ankle bracelets jingling, and looked at Pinny through her hair. "How did you guess?" she said finally.  
"Well, the girl thing is obvious but I saw him looking at Alec once or twice."  
"You absolutely can't tell anyone," said Isabelle.  
"Not even Alec?"  
"Especially not Alec!"  
"All right." Pinny heard the stiffness in her own voice. "I guess I didn't realize it was such a big deal."  
"It would be to my parents," said Isabelle quietly. "They would disown him and throw him out of the Clave—"  
"What, you can't be gay or bisexual and a Shadowhunter?"  
"There's no official rule about it. But people don't like it. I mean, less with people our age—I think," she added, uncertainly, and Pinny remembered how few other people her age Isabelle had ever really met. "But the older generation, no. If it happens, you don't talk about it."  
"Oh," said Pinny, wishing she'd never mentioned it."I love his like a brother," said Isabelle. "I'd do anything for him. But there's nothing I can do."  
"At least he has you," said Pinny awkwardly, and she thought for a moment of Jace "Do you really think that Alec would … mind?"  
"I don't know," said Isabelle, in a tone that indicated she'd had enough of the topic. "But it's not my choice to make."  
"I guess not," Clary said. She leaned in to the mirror, using the cotton Isabelle had given her to dab away the excess eye makeup. When she sat back, she nearly dropped the cotton ball in surprise: What had Isabelle done to her? Her cheekbones looked sharp and angular, her eyes deep-set, mysterious, and a bronze with golden and green.  
"I look like beautiful," she said in surprise.  
Isabelle raised her eyebrows. "What?"  
"It's beautiful," Pinny said hastily. "I like it."  
"Great." Isabelle bounced up off the bed, her anklets chiming. "Let's go."  
"I need to stop by my room and grab something," Pinny said, standing up. "Also—do I need any weapons? Do you?"  
"I've got plenty." Isabelle smiled, kicking her feet up so that her anklets jingled like Christmas bells. "These, for instance. The left one is electrum, which is poisonous to demons, and the right one is blessed iron, in case I run across any unfriendly vampires or even faeries—faeries hate iron. They both have strength runes carved into them, so I can pack a hell of a kick."  
"Demon-hunting and fashion," Pinny said. "I never would have thought they went together."  
Isabelle laughed out loud. "You'd be surprised."  
The boys were waiting for them in the entryway. They were wearing black, even Simon, in a slightly too-big pair of black pants and his own shirt turned inside out to hide the band logo. He was standing uncomfortably to the side while Jace and Alec slouched together against the wall, looking bored. Simon glanced up as Isabelle strode into the entryway, her gold whip coiled around her wrist, her metal ankle chains chiming like bells. Pinny expected him to look stunned—Isabelle did look amazing—but his eyes slid past her to Pinny, where they rested with a look of astonishment.  
"What is that?" he demanded, straightening up. "That you're wearing, I mean."  
Pinny looked down at herself. She'd thrown a light jacket on to make her feel less naked and grabbed her backpack from her room. It was slung over her shoulder, bumping familiarly between her shoulder blades. But Simon wasn't looking at her backpack; he was looking at her legs as if he'd never seen them before.  
"It's a skirt, together with my top, Simon," Pinny said dryly. "I know I don't wear skirts that much, but really."  
"It's so short," he said in confusion. Even half in demon hunter clothes, Pinny thought, he looked like the sort of boy who'd come over to your house to pick you up for a date and be polite to your parents and nice to your pets.  
Alec, on the other hand, looked like the sort of boy who'd come over to your house and burn it down for kicks. "I like it," he said, unhitching himself from the wall. His eyes ran up and down her lazily, like the stroking paws of a cat. "It needs a little something extra, though."  
"So now you're a fashion expert?" Her voice came out unevenly—he was standing very close to her, close enough that she could feel the warmth of him, smell the faint burned scent of newly applied took something out of his jacket and handed it to her. It was a long thin dagger in a leather sheath. The hilt of the dagger was set with a single red stone carved in the shape of a rose.  
She shook her head. "I wouldn't even know how to use that—"  
He pressed it into her hand, curling her fingers around it. "You'd learn." He dropped his voice. "It's in your blood."  
She drew her hand back slowly. "All right."  
"I could give you a thigh sheath to put that in," Isabelle offered. "I've got tons."  
"CERTAINLY NOT," said Simon.  
Pinny shot him an irritated look. "Thanks, but I'm not really a thigh sheath kind of girl." She slid the dagger into the outside pocket on her backpack.  
She looked up from closing it to find Alec watching her through hooded eyes. "And one last thing," he said. He reached over and pulled a few sparkling pins out of her hair, so that a few warm and heavy blue and purple curls fell down her neck. The sensation of hair tickling her bare skin was unfamiliar and oddly pleasant.  
"Much better," he said, and she thought this time that maybe his voice was slightly uneven too.


End file.
